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GOOD AMERICANS 


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SHE BESTOWED A NOD AND SMILE UPON PETER DAVENANT 



GOOD AMERICANS 


7C<xrvw>£n^ x 

MRS. BURTON HARRISON 

AUTHOR OF “AN ERRANT WOOING,” “ SWEET BELLS OUT 
OF TUNE,” “A BACHELOR MAID,” ETC. 



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NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 
1898 


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Copyriglit, 1897, 1898, by 
The Century Co. 


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HEN we may depend upon you for the 
15th?” said Mrs. Grantham, scarcely 
believing her good luck. 

“So good of you to let me come,” 
suavely answered her school-friend of 
former days— known to the world of 
fashion, of whom she was the starry leader, and to the 
other world in our broad continent that comforts its 
uninteresting existence by reading about the doings of 
a few New-Yorkers, as Mrs. Jack Stanley. 

“ I want to try to get together for you some really 
clever, cultivated people,” went on Mrs. Grantham, a 
flush of excitement mounting to her cheeks. 

“Do, dear; I love novelty,” rejoined Mrs. Stanley. 
“ Katrina, you have no idea how dull it is, night after 
night, meeting the same old set ! When we are stand- 
ing around, waiting for dinner to be announced, I some- 
times wonder which of the men is going to pounce on 
me, and there ’s not an emotion in my being for one 
more than another. But what is to be done ? It is 
i 1 


2 


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our fate. You know We are now building dining- 
rooms that will just hold Us.” 

Mrs. Grantham tried to laugh, but in her heart re- 
sented the magnificent assumption. For years Hen- 
rietta Stanley had been the fly in her ointment. The 
ambitious wife of a hard-working lawyer recently ele- 
vated to judicial honors, Mrs. Grantham, with her 
pleasant home and nice little family, should by rights 
have been contented to keep to her own busy, well-filled 
orbit, without coveting the periphery in which circled 
golden butterflies engendered by the luxury of modern 
New York. 

But although it would have been to her a dreadful 
trial to live Etta’s life, she did not care to think there 
was in her community any life she might not lead. 
Besides, Etta was only an accident of fortune. What 
had occasioned her, nobody asked ; what inspired her 
distinguished exclusiveness, nobody knew; for her 
rather dull personality it was certain nobody cared. 

The real reason of this attempt of Mrs. Grantham’s 
to rake the coals from the ashes of her old friendship 
was a pretty little Miss Grantham, who was to swell 
the ranks of next season’s debutantes. Everybody 
knows that a girl’s coming out alters her family’s 
mode of life and plans. If little Katty— as her father 
inelegantly persisted in calling their domestic treasure 
—had to be in society, it must be in the best there was, 
said her mama. And if Etta Stanley chose to make 
the effort, how much she might accomplish for Katty 
by a mere wave of her wand ! 

Thus, after a considerable interval of tepid half- 
intercourse with her quondam intimate, Mrs. Grantham, 


GOOD AMERICANS 


3 


putting her pride in her pocket, had gone that after- 
noon to call at the stately dwelling in which Mr. Stan- 
ley had enshrined the somewhat faded charms of his 
lady. She had found Etta at home to visitors, a fact 
that gave Katrina courage to be cordial. The hostess 
was ensconced in a gilt Louis XV chair with cream- 
satin cushions, in a salon like an outgrowth of 
Vudeen’s emporium in Fifth Avenue for the sale of 
effects from foreign palaces. 

Mrs. Grantham, who had been saving for some 
months out of her housekeeping money in order to 
purchase for her drawing-room a Morris arm-chair 
covered in flowery velveteen, had felt depressed at the 
outset by this trifling circumstance. 

But an agreeable surprise awaited her. Etta had 
been recently attending a course of lectures on ethical 
culture, alternating in the ball-rooms of her set. Per- 
haps this contributed to her unwonted mood of agree- 
able acquiescence. Perhaps she had absolutely nothing 
else to think about. In any case, she had tried the ex- 
periment of being gracious with an old friend. She 
had inquired for Katrina’s husband, daughter, and 
boys at school. She had offered one or two small 
anecdotes about her own absent children, and made 
some allusion to past days. And last of all, when 
Katrina, emboldened by the thaw in a long-frozen 
atmosphere, had asked her to dinner on the 15th, Etta 
had actually said yes. 

The moment after, she had been overtaken by appre- 
hension lest her acceptance was a mistake. 

u They will be highly respectable frumps,” she had 
said within herself. 11 1 wish Jack were not going off 


4 


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in the yacht for his West India cruise that day. He 
always knows what those people talk about.” 

“ So dear of you to want me,” she had murmured, 
nevertheless. “And you are going to get me some- 
body very nice ? ” 

“I shall have Agatha Carnifex, to begin with,” said 
Mrs. Grantham. 

Miss Carnifex, viewed from every point, was unim- 
peachable. Family, fortune, cleverness, good looks, 
position— all were Agatha’s. 

“Agatha? Yes,” answered Mrs. Stanley, with an 
amused little curl of the lip. “ Her father, poor dear, 
is quite one of my pals. He says I rest him after his 
daughter’s pyrotechnics of reform of the human race.” 

“Mr. Carnifex will certainly come. He is a great 
friend of my husband’s,” went on Katrina, with anima- 
tion. “ Besides, I want Agatha as well as you to meet 
my new young man.” 

Only the faintest flutter of interest stirred Mrs. 
Stanley’s exterior. 

“ And who, pray, is he ? ” 

The answer was interrupted by the arrival of an- 
other visitor— a tall, slim, exquisitely pretty girl re- 
sembling a French pastel, and dressed in a costume 
and hat of black velvet picked out with Russian sables, 
of which quiet elegance of attire Katrina Grantham 
made note before she had heard the wearer’s name. 

“ Katty must have something like that next winter. 
The really smart people never overdress,” she was 
inwardly saying, when Mrs. Stanley, in a sort of be- 
grudging way, introduced to her “my friend, Miss 
Sybil Gwynne.” 


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5 


“ Then I am not too late to make tea for you, dear- 
est ? ” said Miss Gwynne to her hostess, tenderly. 

“No, darling; Barnes is just fetching it,” answered 
Etta, with an effusion entirely lacking in her talk with 
Mrs. Grantham. 

“I had to drop in at Tilly’s to hear her Russian 
violinist, or she ’d have never forgiven me,” went on 
the girl. “ And after the last piece— to which nobody 
listened, they were in such a hurry to talk over Char- 
ley’s engagement with Ethel— I beg your pardon,” she 
interrupted herself, turning to the outsider. “This 
must seem very dull to you. I am sure I caught a 
much pleasanter sound when I came in. Were not 
you talking about some entirely new young man 1 ” 

“ Mrs. Grantham was telling me of that rara avis,” 
said Etta, yawning a very little. “ Pray go on, Katrina, 
and tell Sybil, too.” 

“ It was only that I hoped Etta might fancy meeting 
Peter Davenant,” said Mrs. Grantham, deliberately, 
and with conscious pride in enunciating a name just 
now so interesting to the public. 

But there was no responsive intelligence in the face 
of either hearer. 

“Surely you have seen in the papers lately,” she 
hurried on, “ of the brilliant work he did in bringing 
about the conviction of Judge McStephen in the trial 
of his impeachment ? ” 

“ We have papers,” admitted the hostess, languidly ; 
« but Jack always keeps them in the smoking-room.” 

“I am afraid you will think us very uninformed,” 
added Miss Gwynne, more tactfully; “but really we 
never heard of Judge McStephen.” 


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“ I forget that everybody is not as much at home in 
such matters as I must be,” answered Katrina, with 
dignity. “ And perhaps I was influenced by Agatha 
Carnifex having told me there was no one in town she 
wanted so much to meet as Davenant.” 

“ Really?” said Etta, changing her right foot for 
the left upon her gilded footstool. 

“He is a type of the best latter-day American, and 
looks like an 1840 ‘portrait of a gentleman/ with 
manners to match— old-fashioned and courtly— stands 
with his hat off in the street while talking to women 
—Sir Charles Grandison, you know— thinks all women 
are goddesses, or ought to be.” 

“Decidedly not du monde, then,” interrupted the 
hostess, rearranging some roses that leaned toward 
her in a tall emerald-glass vase. 

“I am afraid not of your world,” said Katrina. 
“ For years he plodded along in a subordinate position 
here, before an opportunity came to prove himself. 
Now, the wise men say, it J s only a question of time 
before he gets to the very top of the ladder. When 
he began, a stranger from a dead Southern town where 
he had been admitted to practice, he was poor as a 
church-mouse, and knew nobody. Now, though still 
poor, he is the most talked of among the youngsters 
of his profession.” 

“And a youngster means—?” asked Sybil, archly. 

“A rising young lawyer till he is sixty, and after 
that a leader of the bar,” answered Mrs. Grantham, 
smiling. “ Davenant is about thirty years old, but in 
ignorance of worldly things ; just a big, trustful, affec- 
tionate, headstrong, ardent boy. I ’m sure the women 


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7 


of society who would care to experiment on him would 
find him virgin soil” 

The phrase, taking hold of Mrs. Stanley, caused her 
to sit up and forward, on her chair of state. The 
servants, coming in to light lamps, revealed her por- 
celain-tinted face with the near-sighted pale-blue eyes, 
under a mass of craped blonde hair, kindled with a 
faint animation. 

“ And I am to meet this paragon at dinner ? ” she 
said. u Don’t fail to put him on one side of me, Ka- 
trina. And why can’t you be awfully nice, and give 
poor Sybil, too, a chance at Mr. Davenant ? ” 

“ I shall be only too happy to have Miss Gwynne,” 
said Mrs. Grantham, promptly, although at the mo- 
ment she reflected that this would cut off one of the 
“ duty ” dames whom she had meant to work in on the 
occasion of entertaining Mrs. Stanley. After all, Miss 
Gwynne was so pretty, so fine of grain, so perfect 
a product of high civilization, it would always be a 
pleasure to have had her. 

Sybil protested, but was overcome by Etta’s rather 
too frank solicitations. 

“Yes, dearest, you must go; I will take no denial; 
it will make it so much more— I mean I will call for 
you, and we can talk in the carriage coming home. 
Here is the tea at last; pray, Katrina, don’t go till 
you have had some. And here come more people ; I 
hope among them you may find somebody worth talk- 
ing to.” 

That was an attractive gathering in the spacious 
drawing-room with broad windows looking over into 
the bare boughs and wintry sage-green reaches of turf 


8 


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of the park opposite. The people composing it, in- 
cluding two or three well-authenticated foreigners, 
were easy, low-toned, well-bred, well-dressed without 
ostentation. In that each seemed to be in a place 
recognized by the others, it was in some respects the 
ideal society. Mrs. Grantham, who fell into conver- 
sation with a lively widow, Mrs. Arden, lingered on 
to hear what this lady had to say about Mrs. Stanley’s 
delightful tea-maker, Miss Gwynne. 

“Sybil is almost new to New York, last season 
being her first here. A niece of Mrs. St. Clair Lewiston, 
you know, with whom she lives. Educated altogether 
abroad, and has had unusual opportunities there, hav- 
ing been presented at half the courts of Europe. If 
poor Mrs. Gwynne had n’t died in harness, so to speak, 
running around with her daughter to all the smart 
resorts of the Continent year after year, Sybil might 
never have known America. But she was an only 
child, and after her mother’s death Mrs. Lewiston 
went out, and in time brought her back. What was 
it Paul Bourget called Sybil ? The fine fleur of Ameri- 
can aristocracy, I think, or some such phrase, that 
has stuck by her. She is adorably pretty and dainty j 
don’t you think so ? Rather too quiet, perhaps $ but 
such graceful manners. As soon as Etta Stanley saw 
Sybil, of course she appropriated her for a bosom 
friend, and now they are inseparable. Etta finds 
something chic in a crony not exactly a foreigner, 
but who might as well be one for all she under- 
stands of her own country. But, then, who can pre- 
dict what may happen? With this Revolutionary- 
Sons of the Cincinnati-Colonial Dames business all 


GOOD AMERICANS 


9 


over the place, patriotism may be ‘in’ again next 
year.” 

“ My dear lady, what heretical sentiments ! ” said a 
smug, merry-faced gentleman of middle age, who now 
returned to them after setting down their tea-cups. 
“ I ’m sure I bank upon my nationality abroad— in 
England especially, where we ’re much more in vogue 
when a trifle startling, or at least dialectic. I heard, 
by the way, a kind lady, who had never dreamed of 
doing such a thing at home, called upon to read aloud 
one of Miss Wilkins’s short stories, in a country-house 
party, last summer ; and the mess she made of it was 
astonishing. People sat around shading their eyes 
with their hands, solemn as owls ! And you know our 
Lady Greenwich has written home to her friends, for 
heaven’s sake to send her out a lot of outrageously 
slangy Americanisms to learn by heart, or she ’ll never 
be a 1 go.’ ” 

“ I can believe it,” said Mrs. Grantham, “ after just 
reading an English story by , with incidental Ameri- 
cans of unique vulgarity to represent our best society.” 

“Never mind,” said Mr. Cleve, comfortably. “The 
author is young, and will live to know better. Be- 
sides, I forgive anybody who entertains me decently 
in these days. And, with all their talk in the air, they ’re 
awfully nice to us, individually, over there. But speak- 
ing of people being put under contribution to entertain 
each other in English homes, I have at last found my 
metier. I tried it modestly last year, and was quite a 
blazing success as a teller of American anecdotes racy 
of the soil. Since then I ’ve subscribed to one of those 
newspaper-clipping chaps, and he sends me a hundred 


10 


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assorted jokes for five dollars. I pick out the best, 
and study them while I ’m shaving. Last night a 
Western fellow who dined with me at the club gave 
me three brand-new ones. Like to hear them ? 

“Number 1. Eastern man at a Western hotel (at- 
tended at table by a 1 waitress * too superior to waste 
words upon a mere hungry customer). 

“ Man : 1 I 11 take some berry-pie, please.’ 

“ Waitress (coldly and rapidly) : 1 Straw, ras’, huckle, 
or goose 1 7 

“ Number 2. Traveler from frontier district, strik- 
ing hotel where advanced fashions have obtained, 
observes, with an expression of pleased surprise, the 
finger-bowl set before him at the close of his meal. 

“ 1 What ’s this for, waiter 1 7 

“ 1 To wash your hands, sir.’ 

“ 1 1 wish I ’d a-know’d it ’fore I began my dinner.’ 

“And Number 3. You will imagine yourself in a 
railroad hostelry of the lightning-change variety, 
where a deliberate diner has just taken his seat at 
table, and is approached by the breathless waiter. 

“ 1 Will you have bean-soup ? ’ 

“ 1 Well, let me see. I think I ’ll—’ 

“ 1 Dinner ’s over ! ’ ” 

It was impossible to resist Mr. Cleve’s chuckling 
enjoyment of his own fun. The wrinkles around his 
eyes became puckered so comically, his laugh rolled 
out so like mellow wine from an ancient bottle, his 
hearers could but join in the chorus. Having made 
his little coup, the amiable gentleman waggled off to 
another coterie, where he was heard repeating the 
same jokes. 


GOOD AMERICANS 


11 


“ I will say for the old beau that he has a different 
set every time, and that they are sometimes new,” re- 
marked Mrs. Grantham’s companion. “ Also, that his 
dinners of eight or ten are feasts to be remembered 
for substantial excellence. We were talking about—? ” 
“ Sybil Gwynne— and the fact that she is a foreign- 
bred American. Is she happy here?” asked Mrs. 
Grantham, who had a way of her own of coming to 
the point. 

“ Happy ! Who would n’t be who is so tremendously 
petted and extolled as she happens to be just now? 
Etta Stanley has put the finishing touch upon her 
vogue. And although Sybil’s mother left her but a 
small income, her aunt is rich and lavish, and the girl 
is like a princess in a fairy-tale, so far as knowing 
about real life.” 

u She has no love-affair on ? ” 

11 1 think not. A lot of young fellows run after her ; 
but they do it mechanically, like little figures in a 
street puppet-box, that jump the same way at the 
same moment. Her life is spent in the most conven- 
tional round one can imagine. But she is not dull or 
vapid. On the contrary, I think Sybil has excellent 
ability, some sense of humor, and a sweet temper. 
All I have to complain of is that she is unreal, out of 
place in her present setting— like a charming actress 
who has come to fill a brief engagement upon our 
boards before returning to the place where she was 
trained. Dear me! Six o’clock? I must fly. So 
nice to have seen you again. Next year, when you ’ve 
a daughter to bring out, you ’ll be obliged to be in the 
treadmill like the rest of us. Last night I sat on a 


12 


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dais watching my two girls spin until 2 : 30 A. M. To- 
night we have a large dinner at home, the opera, and 
the Tuesday dance. And I have already been to-day 
to the dentist with Hal to have his bad tooth out, and 
after that to hear a string quartet concert, before com- 
ing here. You do look fresh, Katrina! But only 
wait. This time next year peep in the glass, and see 
if you find the same face smiling back at you ! Good- 
by, good-by.” 

When Mrs. Grantham went down the broad steps to 
let Mrs. Stanley’s curbstone footman put her into her 
modest cab, she found the way blocked by a well- 
appointed little brougham, into which a young man 
was about to assist the beauty, Miss Sybil Gwynne. 

“ I am sorry to be in your way,” smiled the young 
lady. “Won’t you let Mr. Ainslie— this is Mr. Ains- 
lie, Mrs. Grantham— put you in yours first?” 

“I hope Katty will always do and say things to 
older people as prettily as that,” thought Katty’s 
mama, while the youthful Corydon in a long frock- 
coat doffed his high, shining hat, and stepped back to 
do his lady’s bidding. 

“I’m sure I ’m very much obliged to you for creat- 
ing a diversion,” said he, in answer to the older lady’s 
thanks ; “ Miss Gwynne has been lecturing me so that 
I don’t know which end I stand upon.” 

“ For shame ! ” cried Sybil. “ You have got the true 
American habit of exaggeration. I merely told him, 
Mrs. Grantham, that New York young men ought to 
take the matter into their own hands, and try to make 
themselves enjoy life more.” 

“ I like your calling me a New York young man,” 


GOOD AMERICANS 


13 


put in Ainslie, “ considering I was born in Paris, edu- 
cated in England, and have spent most of my summers 
knocking around the Continent.” 

“Well, a good American young man, if you like 
that better.” 

“It is so hard,” said Ainslie, whimsically, “ to be a 
good American when one knows only New York, Bos- 
ton, Washington, a little bit of Baltimore, and all of 
Newport. When I try to take in the monotony of the 
rest of our country, my interest becomes homeopathi- 
cally diluted.” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” exclaimed Katrina Grantham, really 
shocked, and moving toward her carriage, into which 
she got, only to be detained by their further re- 
marks. 

“ Now don’t you think he deserves my 1 lectures/ 
Mrs. Grantham?” said Sybil G wynne, lightly. 

“ I am not a good judge ; I live with people who 
believe in so many things,” replied Mrs. Grantham, 
hurriedly. 

“It ’s more my misfortune than my fault, Mrs. 
Grantham,” went on Ainslie, a fresh-colored young 
man of very open and engaging countenance. “To 
prove it, I have deliberately and in cold blood come 
back here to live. I hope the gods who sit up above 
and reward us mortals with more or less discrimina- 
tion will confer on me a large share of —what do they 
confer— ambrosia?— no j 1 have an aunt who gives me 
ambrosia-cake for tea, and it ’& uncommonly nasty- 
asphodel— well, anything you like— for my self-sacri- 
fice in becoming a poor republican.” 

“ Tell him to drive on, please,” said Katrina to Mrs. 


14 


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Stanley’s footman. “Good-by,” she nodded to tbe 
pair standing upon tbe sidewalk. 

As she drove away Sybil turned to the young man 
reproachfully. 

“ There, now j you have made another sensible per- 
son think of you as a rather civil outlaw.” 

“ The difference between us is that you think these 
things about our native land, and I say them. I sup- 
pose I may n’t share the privilege of your Aunt Lewis- 
ton’s cozy little brougham and drive home with you ? ” 

“ Certainly not,” said Sybil. 

“Not if I am dropped at the corner nearest my 
club ? ” 

“ No,” she replied inexorably. 

“Very well, then. In London you would n’t have 
minded letting me come with you. I can’t afford a 
hansom in New York ; so I ’ll just hie me to a street- 
car, and pack in with thirty or forty dingy people go- 
ing home from work. I shall be jostled and punched 
out of all semblance of decency, and my only over- 
coat will be strained in the seams till— have you no 
pity on my only overcoat? Are you aware what it 
costs to buy a new one of a tailor here ? ” 

“ Very sorry ; but— home, please,” said Sybil, letting 
herself be shut inside the little carriage, from which 
her fair loveliness shone out like a star. 

The latter part of her remark, being addressed to 
the footman, was at once transmitted to the power 
upon the box, and the brougham moved away. Ains- 
lie, lifting his hat and smiling pleasantly, stood there 
until she had disappeared from view. 

“ What a nice boy ! ” Sybil thought to herself, as 


GOOD AMERICANS 


15 


she settled back into the soft cushions ; “ though at 
twenty-eight he should hardly be called a boy. He 
amuses me more than any one, and we understand 
each other perfectly ; but I wish he would sometimes 
seem to be in earnest about something.” 

Sybil Gwynne was engaged in trying faithfully to 
adapt herself to a complete change of thought and 
habit in daily life. The Old-World tinge in her was, 
by dint of constant application to the claims of her 
present busy, sparkling life, gradually fading out. 
The people with whom her lot was cast certainly un- 
derstood the art of living in its high material sense, 
and, from dawn to dawn again, with discreet intervals 
for sleep, her days were passed in pursuit of pleasant 
things. 

Yet there was something lacking— just what, she 
was not prepared to say. The second season of this 
brilliant existence had begun to drag with her. Wher- 
ever she turned, there was the same perspective of 
solvent, restless folk intent upon accumulating and 
displaying the decorations of life, which, it must be 
said, their opportunities for culture and observation 
enabled them to appreciate perfectly. And, beyond 
these, Sybil saw nothing of her fellow-Amerieans. 
Her sole idea of her countrymen and -women was a 
class privileged to make ducks and drakes of any ob- 
stacles in the way of their desires— a class spending a 
few months of the winter in palaces in town, then, at 
the first hint of spring, wafting themselves away to 
some far southland in yachts or steamers, or else 
pounding the railway lines of the continent with the 
wheels of their private cars in search of softer airs 


16 


GOOD AMERICANS 


and change ; in the early summer running over to 
London or Paris for the season and for shopping j at 
midsummer returning to chateaux at Newport, Bar 
Harbor, Lenox, or on the Hudson, there to live the 
lives of the princes of the earth. Did any one of them 
fancy founding an estate, might not he purchase vast 
acres of primeval woodland, and in a few months’ time 
adorn it with roads, plantations, bridges, drains, out- 
buildings, stables, hothouses, lawns, gardens, walls 
covered with vines, and a house built and fitted up by 
relays of mechanics, working at night by electric light 
to fulfil the contract by a date fixed ? There was no 
end to it. As fast as one favored being had accom- 
plished some wonder of Aladdin’s lamp, and before 
his friends had ceased admiring it, a successor would 
arise to send his rocket even higher into the zenith ! 
And the effect of this upon their community was not 
inspiring. In the intervals of phenomenal surprises 
no one could settle down to coherent thought and 
purpose. Unless the head-lines in society events were 
as astonishing as those in the daily newspapers, peo- 
ple felt a little bit aggrieved. The fad of haste and 
unrest was a result. In the perpetual chase after nov- 
elty Sybil felt herself, like the rest, becoming breath 
less without a cause j becoming trivial, disconnected, 
artificial, and, at times like the present, wondering 
what it is all worth. 

Sybil was, in fact, in the state of mind in which 
some women join sewing-classes and go to Lenten 
services, or violently visit the unoffending poor. As 
she drove down the long avenue to Washington 
Square, she found herself dwelling with satisfaction 


GOOD AMERICANS 


17 


upon the fine lines and earnest, dependable expression 
of Katrina Grantham’s face. Here, at last, was an 
acquaintance who offered her some variation upon the 
society by which she was surrounded. The invitation 
to Katrina’s dinner, although extorted by Mrs. Stan- 
ley, had been graciously given. 

“ Do you really think I had better ? ” Sybil had found 
time afterward to convey in a whisper to her hostess, 
with a glance in the direction of unconscious Katrina. 

“ Of course,” Mrs. Stanley had said bluntly. “ Do 
you suppose she does n’t know you will be a 1 card ’ ? ” 
“ Card ” or not, Sybil continued to dwell upon the 
thought of the 15th with animation. To get out of 
her groove, to mix a little with brain- workers and pos- 
sessors of the mental power that makes the wheels of 
great New York go round, was a decided event. And 
more than once she recurred to what Mrs. Grantham 
had said about the u new young man.” The terms of 
the lady’s phraseology were so different from those 
applied to the heroes of her horizon in general. 

u I am going to meet a 1 best latter-day American,’ ” 
she said, smiling at herself in the mirror, while the 
maid dressed her hair. “ I have n’t an idea what is an 
1 1840 portrait of a gentleman.’ But I recognize Sir 
Charles Grandison, and I like a man who thinks all 
women ought to be goddesses. 1 Big, trustful, head- 
strong, ardent.’ Oh, dear! what a very out-of-the- 
way individual he must be!” 

Sybil’s ordinary evening frock in company was of 
plain white satin; for, as Mrs. Arden said, u These 
dinner-girls leave nothing for the brides ! ” It became 
her admirably; and as she followed Mrs. Stanley, 
2 


/ 


18 


GOOD AMERICANS 


twenty minutes after time, into Mrs. Grantham's draw- 
ing-room, that deep-red- vestured apartment, hung with 
the satin damask that had been Katrina's mother's, 
seemed to have received into it a lily tall and fair 
upon a virgin stalk. They went in to dinner almost 
immediately, Mr. Justice Grantham, as a matter of 
course, leading off with Mrs. Stanley, who, having 
what she called la grippe (in reality only a good old- 
fashioned cold in the head), looked swelled and stupe- 
fied. The splendor of her tiara, the luster of her 
pearls, could not eclipse or cause to be forgotten a 
very decided redness about the great lady's nose ; and 
during the soup she could hardly speak for physical 
reasons, combined with deep anxiety lest they should 
not serve champagne directly with the fish. 

u In this kind of a house they will be likely to keep 
it back till the saddle of mutton," she thought mourn- 
fully; but after her first mouthful of timbale, when 
the life-giving golden fluid flowed bubbling into her 
glass, Mrs. Stanley sipped and was consoled. Mrs. 
Grantham, observing these things from afar, had now 
but one surviving concern— lest her dignified and 
sarcastic husband, whom she had heard repeatedly 
inveigh against fine ladies of the stripe of her old 
friend Etta— who, ever since her announcement of the 
present banquet, had peppered her with small shot of 
ridicule for attempting a Stanley affair— who at the 
time of going to his room to dress had been gloomily 
foreboding utter failure for the whole entertainment 
—should allow this frame of mind to appear in his 
conversation with their chief guest ! 

What was her relief, upon peeping between a relic 


GOOD AMERICANS 


19 


of the ancestral Granthams— a silver christening-bowl 
filled with red roses— and the candelabra on four sides 
of it blooming with crimson shades, to behold the head 
of her household engaged in the most brilliant banter 
at his command with the lady at his right! Mr. 
Grantham was not only what wives call “ laying him- 
self out to do the proper thing ” : he was apparently 
engaged in “being fascinating on his own account.” 
And Etta was warming into such suavity as Mrs. 
Grantham had not seen her show since Etta was a 
girl! 

“ I wish, for their own sakes, men could be a little 
more consistent,” flashed through the hostess's mind ; 
“but just now this is a heaven-send, and I 'll never in 
the world cast it up at Mowbray. And the sweet- 
breads are just right, thank goodness ! Etta seems to 
have forgotten all about her desire to cultivate Dave- 
nant, but that leaves him free to make friends with 
Sybil Gwynne. I did not think it worth while to tell 
those two women that I have made up my mind to a 
match between Davenant and Agatha Carnifex. It 
was part of my deep-laid plot to put the two opposite 
each other, instead of side by side, at their first meet- 
ing. I must not seem to throw them at each other's 
heads. Agatha, I am sure, was sent from heaven to 
complete the destiny of a fine, ambitious man like 
Davenant. Nothing would induce me to let my hus- 
band know how much this fancy has taken hold of 
me.” 

Miss Carnifex, seated between the grave and distin- 
guished inventor of a flying-machine that needed only 
capital to launch it triumphantly into space, and a 


20 


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young African explorer just returned from the heart 
of the Black Continent, appeared entirely at ease, and 
unconscious of the schemes projected for her by the 
lady of the house. She was a stately girl of six-and- 
twenty, to whom the control, for some years past, of 
her father’s widowed establishment had lent an air of 
command and self-dependence, the possessor of some 
beauty, more intelligence, an active habit of mind and 
body, and many theories. The consciousness that her 
organization was of a finer quality than that of most 
people she met gave Agatha perhaps a little compla- 
cency in considering herself, but it did not interfere 
with her ready generosity toward the needs and short- 
comings of others. She was always occupied with 
some scheme that, whether satisfactorily to herself or 
not, she carried to its end. She had made many mis- 
takes, suffered a few acute disappointments, and still 
went on journeying up the arc of her rainbow, expect- 
ing some day to find the pot of gold— happiness— at 
the other end of it. One additional peculiarity of 
Miss Carnifex should be noted. She was a devoted 
American, a student of history, a Colonial Dame, a 
conservator of family traditions j and although she 
had traveled, seen, and experienced as much as most 
young women of her surroundings, invariably re- 
turned with enthusiasm to her own sphere of duty 
and pleasure. 

One can appreciate, therefore, Mrs. Grantham’s con- 
viction that an opportunity had come to her to make 
two deserving people happy and complete their use- 
fulness to their kind. But, as the dinner that was to 
lead up to this desirable state of things progressed, she 


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21 


became painfully aware that, while the attention of 
Miss Carnifex more than once wavered away from her 
scientist and explorer to pass in swift review the per- 
sonal claims of her supposed alter ego , Mr. Peter Dav- 
enant kept his eyes and ears for Miss Sybil Gwynne 
alone. Having done what civility demanded for the 
lady at his other side, he had talked, with every evi- 
dence of keen delight in this preoccupation, to the 
beautiful creature, who, as Katrina said to her vexed 
inner self, was no more suited to his workaday needs 
than a Dresden figurine is appropriate to a bronze 
pedestal in the park. 


II 



URING the years that Peter Davenant 
had been at the grindstone in New 
York he had found it convenient to 
dispense almost altogether with ro- 
mantic sentiment. What little he re- 
tained centered in the memory of his 
mother, now passed out of life, and of his Southern 
home going to decay amid many acres of plantation 
land, rich in picturesque greenery and semi-tropic 
blooms— but not in crops. 

Sometimes he would step to the window of his office 
in a “ sky-scraping ” edifice down-town, looking up at 
the space of sunny blue sky above the canon formed 
by high walls on either side, to be poignantly assailed 
by his earliest recollections. He seemed to see again 
the coral branches of the redbud, the waving of gar- 
lands of gray moss and yellow jasmine, the gleam 
of humming-birds and black butterflies with silver- 
spotted wings, that, when in boyhood he lay upon the 
ground to look upward, used to be printed upon such 
a background of vivid azure. 

Then, with a sigh, he would turn back to desk and 
chair and dull routine. His pleasure was dealing with 
affairs in the court-room; his penance, office work. 

22 


\ 


GOOD AMERICANS 


23 


But he was interested in all of it, and out of the inter- 
views with keen-faced men of business wearing rusty 
tweed suits, who defined their clever ideas in idiomatic 
Americanese, often got inspiration of an active sort. 
With all the energy of a nature that must have outlet 
for its strength, he believed in his life, efforts, ambi- 
tions, influences. What had at first offended his finer 
sense in some of his co-workers was accepted as a 
means toward an end. Out of this training-school for 
robust citizenship he had come harder externally, but 
within full of enthusiasm for humanity, and tender as 
a woman toward what touched his heart. 

Now, at thirty, having in hand some of the prizes 
for which he had striven doughtily, and being on the 
way to a wider sphere of independent action, he knew 
moments when the song of the siren sounded in his 
ear, calling on him to rest and listen and let his eyes 
glisten with pleasure and love and jubilee. Until 
recently he had sought no place among the people to 
whom by training and antecedents he belonged. The 
only women he knew had been encountered in board- 
ing-houses, and were of the class that flood the shop- 
ping-streets of a fine afternoon, that perfume them- 
selves with cheap scents, struggle over bargain-counters, 
and indoors read “ society columns,” dreaming of an 
El Dorado wherein their husbands or fathers may, by 
some lucky fluke, lift them up to be a part of this 
coveted social whirl. Commonplace men— vulgar 
men, even— Davenant was resigned to live and work 
among. They had almost always the redeeming 
quality of an unaffected desire to follow their destined 
walk in life, and were often of the stuff that has gone 


24 


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into the real greatness of the western continent. But 
a vulgar woman he could not endure or approach, and 
a commonplace woman wearied him thoroughly. 

When, therefore, this big, masterful, and self-suffi- 
cient young man found himself suddenly brought into 
contact with one of the exotic specimens of a highly 
cultured race, a creature as far apart from him in 
habit of life and mode of thought as the poles are 
separate, the result was like a rifle-shot going through 
his breast. Before the ices were handed at Mrs. 
Grantham’s dinner, he was asking himself, in a sort of 
sweet distraction, what was the nature of this pang 
she had made him feel. How had he lived through 
so many long, arid years without feeling it before? 
What would his future life be worth if he could n’t feel 
it repeatedly, enduringly? 

Every bit of her, from the crown of her small, well- 
set head to the tips of her rose-tinted fingers, satisfied 
his fastidious tastes. The soft voice that caressed his 
ear in her pleasant discourse was in such delicious 
contrast with those nasal tones most familiar to him 
in her sex. Even the measured conventionalism of 
her manner pleased him. It was thus he would have 
the woman he honored bear herself in the presence of 
a stranger. The bounce, the swagger, the challenge 
or open coquetry of commoner clay had at no time 
stirred his pulse like Sybil Gwynne’s cool unconscious- 
ness of their personal relation. Sybil also represented 
to him a world from which the nature of his occupa- 
tions and ambitions had well-nigh shut him out— the 
world of travel, leisure, acquaintance with things ar- 
tistic and picturesque 5 as, for instance, when she told 


GOOD AMERICANS 


25 


him of her sensations, the year before, in coming upon 
the sarcophagus of the great Alexander in the Tchi- 
mili-Kiosk at Constantinople. 

“I had read of it— heard of it,” said she; “but 
what is that to seeing an object so noble, so elevating ? 
When I stood face to face with that more than two- 
thousand-years-old casket of Pentelic marble, carved 
with the deep heroic frieze and decked with those 
lovely rose-and-lilac-tinted garlands, I felt actually 
lifted up; I knew I was looking at one of the Old 
World’s rarest masterpieces of art. One has some- 
thing of that feeling standing before the 1 Venus of 
Melos ’ or the 1 Winged Victory.’ But not even the 
Parthenon at sunset gave me just the impression I 
had from Alexander’s tomb.” 

Poor Davenant, who knew much more than she did 
about the conquering hero’s life and deeds, and yet 
had never got so far away from his own country as 
the docks at Liverpool, felt arise in him, not envy of 
this slender, favored girl, but an impulse to embody 
her with the classic images she evoked— those choice 
treasures he had always longed to see and bow down 
before. He murmured something about looking up 
the back number of a magazine that had had an arti- 
cle on the “find” of the so-called Alexander’s sarcoph- 
agus, in Sidon, in 1885. He even coldly discussed the 
part taken in this discovery by the American mis- 
sionaries then in Syria. And all the while he was 
singing in his heart : “ It is she who is fit to be among 
the rarest, the finest works of the old Pentelic sculp- 
tors. Could I carve, she should stand for my ideal, 
and, when finished, I would put my work on the top- 


26 


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most pinnacle of Parnassus or Athens, and then kneel 
down and worship it.” 

Mrs. Stanley, feeling better of her cold, and having 
to acknowledge herself well entertained by her host, 
now turned to Mr. Davenant. Although it was near 
the time for the ladies to leave the table, she had ex- 
changed with him but a few banalities. 

“I wonder if you have anything on for Monday 
evening ? ” she said languidly, looking at him with 
half-shut eyes. 

Davenant tried to think. There was the Patrick Q. 
O’Shaughnessy Association dinner, at which some of 
his henchmen were urging him to drop in and make 
them a much-needed speech. 

“ Because, if you have n’t,” went on the lady, with 
an air of never having heard of a refusal of one of her 
invitations, “ perhaps you will dine with us,— I mean 
Sybil Gwynne and me,— and go to the opera afterward. 
There will be only Mr. Ainslie besides j my husband, 
as you know, sailed to-day in the yacht for the West 
Indies.” 

He knew as little of her husband as Mrs. Stanley 
had known about the unjust judge whose career Peter 
had helped to cut short ; but he bowed to the informa- 
tion, rejoiced, in spite of himself, at her bidding to 
meet Sybil Gwynne. 

u Does— er— Miss Gwynne live with you ? ” he asked, 
thrillingly conscious of a flow of white satin that bil- 
lowed close on the other side of him. 

“ Sybil— dear me, no ! She lives with a very tire- 
some old cat, her aunt, Mrs. Lewiston, who is an em- 
bodiment of colonial New York. Her dining-room is 


GOOD AMERICANS 


27 


filled with General Washington pictures, and all that 
sort of thing. I believe she has got Benjamin Frank- 
lin woven in silk, under glass, upon her wall. Agatha 
Carnifex would have been just the niece for her— in- 
stead of Sybil, who is dimly conscious of General 
Washington’s habit of veracity, and that he was the 
father of an overgrown country we all get away from 
whenever we can do it. Mrs. Lewiston hates me, be- 
cause Sybil comes with me, and because I hate Mrs. 
Lewiston. So there you are ! But Sybil is a dear.” 

Whenever language failed Mrs. Stanley in which to 
sum up any one rejoicing in the beams of her ap- 
proval, she epitomized him or her as a “ dear.” George 
Meredith and Tolstoi were “dears”; the charming 
young wife of the then President was a “ dear ” ; so 
were the Pope, Mr. Gladstone, her bishop, Jean de 
Reszke, and the French artist who had just finished 
her portrait. 

“You do me too much honor,” said Davenant. “I 
shall be most happy to come to you on Monday.” 

“ At seven-thirty, then, please ; and I shall try my 
best to be down-stairs in time. Do you know, I ’m 
wondering why nobody ever told me what a nice hus- 
band Katrina Grantham has got. He has actually 
made me laugh. So much better than old Cleve, with 
his cut-and-dried little stories. Now, mind you don’t 
forget Monday. You are sure you ’ve not promised 
anybody else ? ” 

Davenant thought, with a shudder, of the Patrick 
Q. O’Shaughnessys, with their green rosettes, howling 
and thumping on the table, smoking and speechmak- 
ing, to the music of a brass band in the gallery. 


28 


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“ Nobody that I dare not forsake for you,” he said 
with prompt gallantry. 

“Pretty well for an unsophisticated beginner,” 
thought Mrs. Stanley, “when I remember Reggy 
Banks telling me he ’d come to me at the opera if his 
valet did n’t forget to put him in mind of it, and 
Lewis Ford, who asked why Jack put out his second- 
best whisky for the smoking-room. This man looks 
like a medieval Florentine— would do for Paolo in a 
Francesca da Rimini tableau; seems smitten with 
Sybil, rather. Perhaps he is piqued because I did n’t 
take notice of him a little earlier.” 

It was Etta’s delusion that she was a great lady out 
of a French novel, who must, for consistency’s sake, 
be provided with a hopeless adorer, if not a grande 
■ passion . As a matter of fact, not even the women’s 
luncheon parties or sewing-classes had been able to 
detect in her the most trivial lapse in propriety ; and 
Jack might come and Jack might go without fear of 
experiencing an emotion of jealousy toward his spouse. 
The youngsters in attendance on her were on free-and- 
easy terms of comradeship, which, valuing their sub- 
stantial privileges in her establishment, they gave no 
token of a wish to exchange for deeper sentiment. 
But Etta could not refrain from thinking of herself 
as a fascinator, and her fancy was to make plans for 
tete-&-tetes, as often as not forgotten when the time 
came. As the ladies now arose to leave the table, she 
did not neglect to engage Mr. Justice Grantham to 
come to call on her, at four-fifteen, the following 
Sunday afternoon, which, much to his own surprise, 
that gentleman found himself promising to do. He 


GOOD AMERICANS 


29 


was glad, though, that Katrina was at the far forward 
end of the line of fair ones the men were conducting 
into exile. And when he thought of what his darling 
mischief, Katty, would say if she knew of this diva- 
gation on her revered father’s part, a little flush came 
into his face. 

“ Until Sunday, then,” Etta said to him, in a confi- 
dential undertone, as they parted. 

“ What ! You are not going to run away now, be- 
fore we get in there?” asked Grantham, rather stu- 
pidly. 

“No; but one never knows what opportunity— at 
four-fifteen, remember,” she answered with her best 
air of mystery,— only to ignore the engagement long 
before Sunday came— though, as Grantham went that 
day for a walk with Katty instead, no great harm was 
done, and when Mrs. Stanley next met him in the 
lobby at the opera-house, she had to ask Sybil who 
was that rather good-looking man who bowed to them. 

“My dear Katrina, your house is charming, your 
husband is charming, and my cold is lots better for 
coming out,” she said, settling down in a sovereign 
manner amid the cushions of Katrina’s Morris chair in 
the drawing-room. “ Pray talk to me a little now, 
and let those two girls take care of each other.” 

Agatha Carnifex and Sybil, who had gravitated to- 
gether naturally, were sitting apart on a small Chip- 
pendale sofa built for two. This left unattached the 
fifth lady of their party, Mrs. Willoughby, who, not 
having had a chance at the planet of fashion during 
dinner, was disposed to make up for it now. 

Mrs. Willoughby, too, was a leader, but her king- 


30 


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dom and Mrs. Stanley’s were not the same, and Mrs. 
Willoughby was quite willing to leave her throne and 
take a footstool in Mrs. Stanley’s domain. To say 
why this should have been I leave to some one suffi- 
ciently astute to solve the social riddle of New York. 
Mrs. Willoughby was every whit as well entitled to 
supremacy as Mrs. Stanley. Mrs. Grantham, who 
owed the lesser light a dinner, had hesitated a little 
about making use of this occasion to liquidate the 
debt ; but since Mrs. Arden, who had been first invited, 
had fallen out, as well as three other desirable u unat- 
tached” females bidden to fill the vacancy, and Mr. 
Chetwood, the famous bachelor lawyer who carried 
sweetness and light to every dinner-table on his list, 
had been called away to Washington, what was a poor 
hostess to do ? Mrs. Grantham filled up with Mr. and 
Mrs. Willoughby. 

Mrs. Willoughby, eminent in charities, a great pa- 
troness of musical and dramatic recitals, and of de- 
serving beginners in general, was just at present in 
the throes of having moved into a grand new house. 
This complaint, so common among New-Yorkers, had 
attacked her in a virulent form. Most of her days, of 
late, had been spent in conducting parties of friends 
from room to room, from floor to floor, of her recent 
acquisition. On more than one such occasion, it may 
be remarked, Mr. Willoughby, in his shirt-sleeves, 
playing an obbligato upon his back hair with two 
silver brushes, had been exhibited (without intention) 
in his dressing-room. And Mrs. Willoughby had 
received so many praises for her taste, ingenuity, 
practical skill,— most of which were due to the archi- 


GOOD AMERICANS 


31 


tect-decorator, — that even she had grown aweary of 
the chorus. She knew intuitively what people were 
going to say about things when they stood upon cer- 
tain rugs or sections of parquetry floor. She was 
tired of her own stock remarks about curtains and 
cabinets and corner cupboards. But she could not 
yet bring herself to give up her glory and step into 
the background along with the other women who had 
lived their little day as the owners of the last new 
houses. 

Accordingly, when Mrs. Grantham graciously in- 
vited her to be seated beside Mrs. Stanley, who looked 
at her in a coldly distant way, the lady at once broke 
forth : 

“ Such a pleasure to come into a finished house ! 
You know we have been waiting all the winter for the 
stone mantelpiece that was carved in Paris for our 
library. Now they discover it will not fit, and the 
workmen must all come back just when our tapestries 
are hung. I ’ll declare I am ready to leave every- 
thing and go abroad ! ” 

“ Your Mr. Davenant is good-looking,” said Mrs. 
Stanley, addressing herself to Katrina. “I like his 
clear, dark skin and hazel eyes; and the profile is 
wonderfully strong. Pray is not that a portrait of 
your mother as I remember her ? Speaking of por- 
traits, have you seen Chatain’s of me? Every one 
says it is his masterpiece. It is just now at Doutil’s 
gallery, and, I am told, is drawing crowds. You can 
have no idea of our trouble to pitch upon a proper 
gown for my sittings. Half a dozen of mine were 
rejected, and at last the artist himself drove with 


32 


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me to Worth’s atelier to select that peach-blossom 
velvet.” 

“I have seen it,” said Mrs. Willoughby, with cor- 
diality. “The flesh-tints are a marvel. Mine, by 
Carolus, does not compare with it. But I find the 
next thing to getting a good portrait is deciding on 
the place to hang it in. We made sure that the bou- 
doir was exactly right for mine ; but somehow the old- 
rose hangings the upholsterer put up killed the colors 
in my background $ and now, after going into every 
room on that floor, my picture is actually standing in 
a corner with its face to the wall. Mr. Willoughby 
says we shall have to build an annex to contain it.” 

“Isn’t your daughter going to show?” went on 
Mrs. Stanley to Katrina. “ If she would like my box 
for the Saturday matinee at the opera, I will send you 
the tickets to-morrow.” 

Mrs. Grantham, having it on her lips to explain that 
Katty had gone out to a school-girl dinner, but would 
be very glad to avail herself of Mrs. Stanley’s polite- 
ness, was cut short by the undaunted Mrs. Wil- 
loughby. 

“ What a good location your box is in ! ” she said to 
Mrs. Stanley. “ I tell my husband he did not strike 
his usual lucky vein when he got ours. Katty is cer- 
tainly a pretty and fascinating creature, and, with 
certain people to back her, will be sure to make a suc- 
cess. Indeed, I tell her that if she is a very good girl 
from now till then, I may give her a coming-out cotil- 
lion in my ball-room, for which they are still weaving 
the draperies in France, so it will probably not be fin- 
ished before next autumn. We must not forget Katty 


GOOD AMERICANS 


33 


next season, Mrs. Stanley. Between us she will do 
well.” 

Mrs. Stanley’s cold eyes emitted a danger-signal. 
She attempted to speak, but failed, and, hunching 
one shoulder, turned it deliberately upon Mrs. Wil- 
loughby’s presumption. Mrs. Grantham, in despair, 
wished it had not gone out of fashion to ask people to 
sing and play after dinner, since Mrs. Willoughby, 
whatever she lacked, was a brilliant pianist of the 
modern school. Katrina, although she disliked the 
custom heartily, even wished that she had hired an 
artist to sing, recite, juggle, or whistle— in this in- 
terim. 

“ They are not having a happy time over there,” said 
Agatha Carnifex, whom few things escaped ; “shall 
we enlarge their circle ? ” 

So saying, she arose and, followed by Sybil, crossed 
the drawing-room. The entrance of a servant with 
Apollinaris water and a decanter of creme de menthe 
effected the rest. The group, broken and recast, left 
Etta protected on each side by a young lady, and Mrs. 
Grantham at the mercy of her effusive guest. 

Agatha, when brought into contact with Etta Stan- 
ley, always felt herself misplaced and at a disadvan- 
tage. An optimist in theory, ever ready to dwell upon 
the hopeful conditions of the society of her birthplace, 
she disliked being reminded of the firm foundation 
of such rocks in the current of progress as Etta and 
her set. Among them she found neither enthusiasm, 
sense of proportion, nor capacity to distinguish be- 
tween excellence and mediocrity. The incoherence, 
the confusion, of their lives troubled her. But, tiring 


34 


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of the attitude of a critic, she had at last resolved to 
take the broad view that in all great centers of social 
life good taste and folly are equally distributed, to 
accept her surroundings, stand by her home and birth- 
right with dignity, and grasp at the best that came 
to her. 

In moments of wider vision she looked with pride 
upon a metropolis to which all the nations of the earth 
have furnished citizens — a city that in scope, prospects, 
tremendous potentiality, picturesqueness of gathered 
races, extremes of wealth and poverty, must fix the in- 
terest of every real thinker upon the world’s progress. 

But, from these empyrean thoughts, what a down- 
fall to Mrs. Stanley, a pretentious figurehead to whom 
numbers of the clever people of Agatha’s acquaintance 
paid court, whom the younger generation of good so- 
ciety aspired to know and emulate ! She liked Sybil, 
whose gentle grace appealed to her— who, if not ex- 
actly brilliant, was intelligent and impressionable. To 
be better friends with her it had often entered into 
Agatha’s mind would be a desirable attainment ; but 
the thought had been as often dismissed in the whirl 
that keeps us forever lamenting the divergence from 
ours of delightful lives into which we have had 
glimpses wholly satisfying, only to lose them in the 
turning of the wheel. 

And Etta! How could Sybil stand being the 
shadow of this adumbration of womankind ? Agatha’s 
patience was also taxed by the way in which her own 
beloved and respected father put up with Etta’s airs 
and whims; by his declaration that, as she was the 
child of his old friends, and her house one of the best 


GOOD AMERICANS 


36 


ordered in town, lie liked to drop in upon her once in 
a while ; worse, by his phlegmatic confession that he 
found Etta not at all a bad sort to talk to ! 

Then there was Mowbray Grantham, one of the most 
sensible men of Agatha’s acquaintance, devoting him- 
self to Mrs. Stanley all during dinner, to the exclusion 
of Mrs. W illoughby, who sat on his other side. For Etta 
he had put forth his wit, his satire, his knowledge of 
men and things. And Etta had nodded acquiescence 
till her tiara sent forth twinkles of coruscating light ; 
had smiled in her wooden fashion ; had contributed no 
fresh thought or keen response to the conversation ; 
and yet her neighbor had appeared to be as well pleased 
as if she had been a mine of discernment. All this 
perplexed Agatha. It made her wonder if the man 
exists who cannot be flattered by the attention of a 
woman of fashionable vogue. 

When the gentlemen came out, Mrs. Grantham, who 
had been lying in wait for this opportunity, contrived 
that Davenant should be placed in a corner beside 
Miss Carnifex. Then the African explorer, a fair and 
blond-bearded young man, consented, at the solicita- 
tion of Mrs. Willoughby, to give the company some 
examples of native music among a tribe of black men 
he had discovered on his last journey. While every 
one wondered if he were about to produce his instru- 
ment from his waistcoat pocket,— some wagering it 
would prove to be a jew’s-harp, others a comb,— the 
butler, who had been sent on an errand to the nether 
regions, reappeared, bearing upon a silver tray two 
sticks of kindling-wood. Accepting these with a polite 
countenance, the explorer proceeded to stand upon the 


36 


GOOD AMERICANS 


hearth-rug, and striking them together in rhythmic 
cadence, accompanied the exercise by a weird, droning 
chant that in the course of time “ got upon the nerves ” 
of everybody present. Afterward the traveler, with 
the modesty of a school-boy, told two or three thrilling 
incidents of adventure among his aborigines ; and 
then Mrs. Stanley got up to go. 

“ So interesting, was n’t it ? ” said Mrs. Willoughby, 
intercepting her. “ Do you know, I think I will inau- 
gurate my new music-room by an African 1 talk ’ from 
Dr. Charles, with stereopticon views and that awfully 
nice music upon kindling-wood. I wonder if he would 
do it 1 ?— such people always like to talk. If I can 
secure him I will surely let you know— oh ! this is my 
husband, Mrs. Stanley, who has not had an opportu- 
nity to be presented to you before—” 

“ Pleased to meet you, madam,” said Mr. Willoughby, 
a large, bland, pink-faced man, offensively well satis- 
fied with himself and his wife. “I am afraid you 
ladies owe me a grudge for having detained our host 
so long in the dining-room. The fact is, I was telling 
him our extraordinary experience in having to take 
up two floors and replace a whole set of beams in our 
new house, because—” 

Mrs. Stanley had moved away. As Sybil in her 
wake passed to the door of the drawing-room, Agatha 
noticed that she turned and bestowed a nod and smile 
upon Peter Davenant, which had the immediate effect of 
making Agatha’s companion babble in his speech, lose 
his thread of talk, and flush up to the roots of his hair. 

“ A perfect creature,” said Agatha, readily and gen- 
erously. 


GOOD AMERICANS 


37 


u Is she not ? ” he exclaimed, then restrained himself. 

The Granthams, to whom it never made any differ- 
ence in particular when they went to bed, having seen 
Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby also depart, now urged upon 
their other guests to remain and chat. For this pur- 
pose they adjourned to Mowbray Grantham’s study, 
serving also as a smoking-room, and until a late hour 
sat about in his old worn leather arm-chairs, and 
chatted of a wide variety of topics. Katty, coming 
flushed and rosy in her little pink-satin cloak from 
her girls’ party, made the rounds, spoke to every one, 
and was sent off to her slumbers. Once or twice 
Agatha, noticing the clock, and solicitous for their 
coachman, tried to induce her father to take leave. 
But the old boy, who was thoroughly enjoying him- 
self, would not budge. It was an arena for men’s dis- 
cussion principally, Katrina and her friend keeping 
together, and listening, well pleased. Among the 
debates upon many themes of interest, Peter Davenant, 
shaking off the spell of a recent influence, gave rein 
to himself, fairly flashing upon the imagination of his 
hearers. His vivid phrases, stimulating wit, abound- 
ing life and spirits, made the utterances of others 
seem tame. With all his independence of mental at- 
titude, there was no dogmatism or pugnacity, and a 
quaint, old-time courtesy underlaid his manner with 
men as with women. 

When at last Agatha’s twitch upon Mr. Carnifex’s 
coat-sleeve succeeded in abstracting the old gentleman 
from Mowbray Grantham’s chair, and the father and 
daughter drove away home, he was fairly purring with 
satisfaction. 


38 


GOOD AMERICANS 


“ That was something like an evening,” he said into 
the huge white-feather boa with which Miss Carnifex 
had wrapped her neck. “Gad! I don’t know when 
I ’ve met a fellow like Davenant. He ’s a man , Agatha ; 
please make a note of it ! I got him to promise to 
come in and eat dinner with yon and me on Sunday. 
Grantham sha’n’t keep the treasure to himself. Funny, 
was n’t it, their putting him between two such pieces 
of fashionable still-life as Etta and her friend Miss 
What-d’ye-call-’em ? He must have felt like an eagle 
trying to keep along with two little downy chicks.” 

“ Then you did n’t notice him much,” said Miss 
Carnifex, “ or you ’d have seen that he had neither 
eyes nor ears for anything but one of the downy 
chicks. He looked at Sybil G Wynne as I ’ve seen little 
street-boys gaze at Easter images in a confectioner’s 
window.” 

“Oh, my dear, I hope not— I hope not,” repeated 
Mr. Carnifex. 

“ Why not, father ? ” 

“ I have seen that happen before.” 

“ What— little street-boys looking into windows ? ” 

“ Little boys getting what is not good for them, and 
suffering for it afterward.” 

“ What a horrid allegory ! ” cried Agatha. “ And 
this about one of your own dear Etta’s pet associates. 
But I ’ll go no further in that direction. I ’ll be loyal 
as Sybil deserves. I think she is lovely enough and 
refined enough to turn any man’s head who can ap- 
preciate her. But that is a long way from thinking 
she would fancy Davenant. They say Mrs. Lewiston 
expects her to marry well abroad. An old English 


GOOD AMEEICANS 


39 


name and estate, with a lodge and a gate-keeper, and 
shooting-parties every year, would please Sybil's aunt, 
and an incidental title, if Providence were kind.” 

“ Then let her catch her foreign hare and cook him,” 
say I. “I have no idea of one of our large-brained, 
large-futured men tying himself to the flounce of a 
mere doll of society.” 

“ Now, daddy, I have hopes of you. You are seeing 
the folly of your ways, and turning aside into the 
right path.” 

“ It is simply incalculable, the mischief these pretty 
little pink-and- white persons do when they are turned 
loose in the world. A glance, a smile, a talk during 
the courses of a dinner, and the man is made or 
marred for life. Women are the very deuce of an 
influence, anyhow. Sometimes it ’s the mother that 
warps a fellow’s career ; oftener, his wife. But, as a 
wise man once said : 1 A man’s mother is his misfor- 
tune, his wife his fault.’ ” 

“ Daddy, you are not very complimentary to our 
sex.” 

“ You are one in a hundred, child ; and your good 
sense must show you that what I say is true. What ’s 
the matter with so many American men nowadays, 
that makes them tear and strain and fret to get money 
at any cost, if ’t is not the chafing, ambitious, dis- 
satisfied women behind them, urging them on ? ” 

The carriage, pulling up before their door, brought 
his outburst to a sudden close. Agatha knew that the 
fire would soon burn itself out, and her father become 
his gentle, whimsical self again. 

But she wondered if what he had said were true. 


40 


GOOD AMERICANS 


In any case, she was very glad to think she was to 
see Davenant again on Sunday. 

Meanwhile Mrs. Grantham, having bid adieu to the 
last of her guests, was anxiously interrogating her 
husband as to the success of the evening. 

“ I think it went off uncommonly well, don’t you ? ” 
she said, standing beside him, where he had dropped 
into his own chair, and was unfolding the evening 
paper he had not before had time to read. 

“Yes, very well,” he said abstractedly, his eye hav- 
ing caught a leading article on the editorial page. 
“ Hum ! Scolding— as usual.” 

This, as Mrs. Grantham well knew, was not directed 
toward herself, but to the powers that fling printers’ 
ink against their enemies. 

“ Do stop reading one minute, Mowbray. Half the 
fun of a thing is talking over it with somebody after- 
ward. I really want your candid opinion about the 
dinner and everything.” 

“ That woman of yours did so well with the cooking, 
there ’ll be no excuse for future deficiencies,” he said, 
now retired behind a double barricade of printed 
columns. 

“You stupid Mowbray!— as if we didn’t have a 
Swedish head cook in. How nice you were to Etta, 
dear ! I feel as if I could never thank you enough for 
making the exertion—” 

Here, feeling herself on dangerous ground, she 
hastened to diverge. 

“ And but for those tiresome Willoughbys all would 
have gone well. I am resolved never again to dine 


GOOD AMERICANS 


41 


with bores that we must have in return. And, for a 
wonder, that big lamp with the pink shade did n’t 
smoke ; I was so relieved. Mowbray, did you ever see 
Katty look prettier than when she came in to-night 
from the fresh air ? She could hold her own by Sybil 
Gwynne any day, I think. Well, whatever happens, 
at last I have brought those two together.” 

No answer. 

“ Mowbray ! I say at last I have brought those two 
together.” 

“What two?” issued in an abstracted voice from 
behind the newspaper. 

“ This is perfectly tormenting, the way you make a 
point of reading all the time I talk to you. Since you 
are not interested, perhaps I had better go to bed.” 

“ I think so, dear ; it ’s very late. Good night,” said 
the voice, with more alacrity. 

“ See if I tell you anything again ! ” exclaimed his 
wife, getting to the door, ready to cry with vexation ; 
then, rushing back like a whirlwind, she threw both 
arms around his neck and newspaper. 

“Good night, you darling! I am sorry I was 
cross.” 

“ To-morrow you wall tell me all your gossip,” said 
Mr. Grantham, affectionately, but with eyes glued 
upon a paragraph he had been straightening out from 
the literature crushed upon his knee. 


Ill 



|AVENANT thought he could never 
pass the heavy hours intervening 
between the dinner at the Granthams’ 
and his next meeting with Sybil. 

Since prosperity had begun to dawn 
on him, he had exchanged his room at 
a boarding-house for a tiny suite in a bachelor-apart- 
ment house. His sitting-room, overflowing with books 
and pipes, possessed a couch, book-shelves, some easy- 
chairs, a broad table with an electric drop-light under 
a green shade, and an open fireplace. When there was 
no longer room for a friend to sit down, by reason of 
the accumulation of papers, periodicals, and volumes, 
Peter would displace these from the chairs, and range 
them in toppling piles along the vacant floor-spaces. 
His inner room, containing a bed, dressing-table, wash- 
stand, and large tin tub, was otherwise a howling 
wilderness of boots and shoes. But this home had 
been to Davenant till now a very sanctuary of pleas- 
antness and peace, away from the bustling multitude 
with whom his days were spent. Although he read 
far less of general literature than in former days, it 
was there, ready to hand. Often he would take down 
his books, blow dust from the tops, handle them lov- 
42 


GOOD AMERICANS 


43 


ingly, turn the leaves, catch a familiar page, con a few 
lines of it, then put the tantalizing treasures back in 
place, cheered by their presence, and feeling as if he 
had shaken an old friend by the hand. Some day— 
ah, delicious “ some day ” ! — he would take time to re- 
read his favorites, and to read some of the new books 
he could not resist buying, although he had little 
chance to know more of them than their bindings, 
print, and title-pages. 

There were pictures on the walls, chiefly classic 
photographs the originals of which he fully intended 
yet to enjoy ; and a portrait of his beautiful Southern 
mother, dressed in white muslin, and wearing her dark 
hair rolled under in the fashion called d VImperatrice 
Eugenie. She had been, like Davenant himself, of the 
coloring Fortuny conferred upon his 11 Spanish Lady,” 
now in the Metropolitan Museum, though of more 
regularly beautiful features and contour— a famous 
New Orleans belle, married to a Carolinian planter of 
Huguenot descent, and the fortunes of both had gone 
under in the crash of the Confederacy. Her life as a 
widow, her death in pinching poverty before Dave- 
nant was able to fulfil the ambition of his life to give 
her the semblance of a comfortable home, were sor- 
rows that had left indelible traces on his heart. Now 
he had only himself to care for. He never went back 
to the rice-fields near the closed mansion, that every 
year clothed themselves anew in living green 5 to the 
groves garlanded with flowers and alive with mock- 
ing-birds. He did not even mention them. 

The Saturday evening before Davenant was to re- 
pair to the opera with Sybil and his new patroness 


44 


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found him seated beside his table, preparatory to 
going out to get his dinner at the club. The book 
open in his hand was a copy of Theocritus, a singer 
whose strains he had not wooed in ages. As his eye 
rambled over the lays of shepherds chanting the 
praises of their fair, a smile came upon his lips. 

u The symptoms have not changed in the least since 
the beginning of the third century before Christ,” he 
said to himself. 

There was a knock at the door. The janitor’s wife 
—a very fine person when you met her shopping in 
Twenty- third street, with her fashionable ruffled cape, 
large Gainsborough hat, and diamond ear-rings, but 
here less imposing in the simple dishabille of a calico 
wrapper, over which she wore a beaded bolero jacket 
—came in. Her face was heated with conflict; her 
eyes flashed scorn and incredulity upon an object she 
carried in both hands. It was, as Davenant at once 
saw, a cast of the “ Winged Victory” he had bought 
that morning, together with a u Venus of Melos,” from 
a vender in the street, and had ordered to be delivered 
at his house. 

“ It ’s meself brought it up to show it you, Misther 
Davenant,” cried the angry dame. “ An’ the other 
wan— though, sure, she ’s got a head on to her, barrin’ 
the arms— I left down below with that saucy Eytalian. 
An’ he pretendin’ he did n’t understand a word of me, 
an’ me kapin’ on tellin’ him he ’s ch’atin’ you, wantin’ 
to l’ave his damaged images an’ scoot away. 1 Where ’s 
the head ? ’ says I. 1 Did you break it af ther he paid for 
it ? ’ says I. 1 Have you got the pieces in your pocket, 
an’ not the conscience to give ’em up?’ says I—” 


GOOD AMEEICANS 


45 


“ It ’s all right, Mrs. O’Brien. Fetch up the 1 Venus 7 
too, and let the fellow go in peace. You see, I bought 
these ladies cheap by taking them 1 as is/ ” interposed 
Davenant, to stem the flowing tide. 

When he had put the two figures upon the top of a 
bookcase, he paused before them in reverence, because 
She had admitted having done so before the originals. 
And before he went off to his evening meal, in closing 
Theocritus his eye rested upon a passage in the “ Song 
of the Cyclops,” from which he tore out the kernel, as 
follows : 

But to leave loving thee, maiden, when once I had seen thee, 
had I not the strength . . . even from that hour. 

“ That fits me, I fear,” he laughed, with spring bud- 
ding in his heart. Little he cared for consequences. 
His mood was in tune with boyish abandonment to 
happiness. Some men, espying him far off in a corner 
of the club dining-room, sitting alone at his table, and 
coming over to settle down upon him for a talk about 
a certain political appointment of their party, were 
astonished at his vague interest in the affair. They 
looked at his brilliant eye, his flushed cheek, and won- 
dered if he were about to go under with a physical 
malady. But Davenant, scoffing at the suggestion, 
declared and showed himself to be in full possession 
of his usual splendid health. 

“ Depend on it, he ’s heard of another piece of good 
luck coming to him,” said one to the other afterward. 
“ That fellow wins on every throw.” 

Not being in condition to adapt himself to club 
society, he returned to his writing-table, where an 


46 


GOOD AMERICANS 


unfinished brief awaited him. A few paragraphs 
written, that too was cast aside. He went to the 
window and looked up into a firmament of deepest 
distances, radiant with stars and star-dust. Sallying 
forth once more, he walked away from the street 
wherein arose his tall, modern domicile, over to a 
broad avenue, which he followed to its end. 

Facing Washington Square, he found easily the 
number of the dwelling he had sought out at the club, 
in the printed register of chosen names, into which 
he had as yet had occasion to make few predatory 
excursions. 

It was one of a row of staid old family mansions 
that make of their vicinity a real Faubourg St. Knick- 
erbocker. Their broad fronts of red brick, with white- 
marble steps and facings, their many-paned windows 
and prim iron railings, the immaculate tone of their 
muslin window-curtains, contrast pleasantly with the 
carved stone and wrought-iron, the plate-glass and em- 
broidered laces, of the house-facades up-town. 

Having identified the shrine of his idol, and ob- 
served that all of its windows were demurely veiled in 
a thin white stuff drawn close against the inner panes, 
Davenant strolled over into the square opposite, where, 
sitting at one end of a bench occupied at the other by 
a bent man in a slouched felt hat, who was enjoying 
an evening pipe, he could keep the beloved house in 
view. 

A little farther along the row, a large dwelling, with 
lights behind every window and an awning run out to 
the curbstone, showed that an evening party was in 
progress. By and by, while he was gazing over at 


GOOD AMERICANS 


47 


the Lewiston house, Davenant observed that its heavy 
front door was in the act of swinging open. His 
heart beat dangerously fast, yet the sensation was not 
unpleasant. In the light streaming from the hall he 
beheld a fat man-servant in evening clothes waddle out 
pompously to give directions to a footman in a high 
hat and long overcoat who arrived from the nether 
regions of the house. Then appeared a maid carrying 
a fan; and lastly emerged a slight, graceful figure 
clothed from head to foot in a long, white-satin cloak 
bordered with fluffy fur, the train of whose gown the 
maid lifted as the wearer began to descend the steps. 

The “ spirit in his feet ” carried Davenant so rapidly 
across the space of roadway and sidewalks interven- 
ing between them, that when he came up with the lit- 
tle party, Sybil Gwynne, attended by the two servants, 
was but just turning away from her aunt’s door. She 
started in genuine surprise at thus meeting him. 

“ Mr. Davenant ! ” she exclaimed. “ You— you were 
coming here ? ” 

Davenant, although no master of the art of cere- 
mony, knew quite well that he had not the conven- 
tional right to present himself at Mrs. Lewiston’s 
without an indication from the mistress of the house 
that his visit was desired. 

“No,” he said straightforwardly; “I was not com- 
ing here.” 

Sybil laughed like a child. “ I don’t know whether 
I like you to be so candid. It leaves me in the attitude 
of supposing you wished to see me again, when, per- 
haps, you had even forgot our meeting at Mrs. Grant- 
ham’s.” 


48 


GOOD AMERICANS 


“ I did not dare to offer a visit where I had not been 
asked,” he said ; then added with absolute frankness, 
11 1 came simply to look at the outside of your house.” 

What possessed Sybil, that, at this, the blood ran 
up to her cheeks and ears and temples? She was 
thankful for the half-light of the street. 

“ I am bound, as you see, to a party in our neigh- 
borhood, so near that I had n’t an excuse to drive 
there,” she hastened to say, at the same time moving 
on in the direction of her destination. 

11 Might I walk there with you ? ” 

“ Oh, of course. Then you are going to Mrs. Craw- 
ford’s too ? ” 

“ Unfortunately not. I never, indeed, had the ad- 
vantage of hearing Mrs. Crawford’s name until you 
mentioned it.” 

What was she to do with this strange, truth-telling, 
fervid being, striding beside her as if he wore seven- 
league boots, and turning upon her a look of such 
unqualified delight ? In all Sybil’s experience of men, 
the like had not happened to her before. The maid 
and footman, who followed discreetly, saw nothing 
out of the way in the rencounter of their young lady 
with a handsome gentleman, in proper evening dress, 
who had been passing Mrs. Lewiston’s door as she 
came down the steps. But the young lady herself, all 
a-flutter with inward excitement, knew better. 

“ There is n’t any chance you are going to dine at 
the Carnifexes’ to-morrow ? ” he asked appealingly, as 
they separated a little group of street-gazers in order 
to pass under Mrs. Crawford’s awning. 

It had been so ridiculously short, their walk to- 


GOOD AMERICANS 


49 


gether, and yet both, in the brief time, had felt so 
much! Sybil was aware of a tremor in her voice 
when she answered : 

“ No. But you ’ve not forgotten Monday ? ” 

11 Forgotten ! Why, I ’ve thought of nothing else. 
It came to me in court yesterday when I got up to 
make an argument, and I was on the point of a very 
bad break. Fortunately, one of the judges was sharp- 
ening a lead-pencil, and another was reading a dinner 
invitation, so I suppose they did not notice ; and I 
rallied soon.” 

“ Absurd ! Good night, then.” 

But she did not really consider it absurd. Although 
this was their second meeting only, she had been 
thinking of him almost as much as he confessed to 
having thought of her. 

Davenant had no excuse to linger in the staring 
little crowd about Mrs. Crawford’s door. Sybil, run- 
ning up the steps as light as a fairy, vanished from 
his sight. There was absolutely nothing to live for 
until they should meet again. 

It was characteristic of the man that he did not 
consider the very decided probability that fate would 
oppose him in his first love-affair. This chance meet- 
ing, his being alone with her for these few happy 
minutes under the stars and gas-lamps, feasting his 
eyes upon her beautiful face and small, shapely head, 
her young form in its drapery of glistening white, were 
all-sufficient for the hour. 

It was too much to hope that she cared as he did, or 
at all, as yet. But Davenant, marching away up-town, 
vowed that she soon should care. He would win her, 

4 


50 


GOOD AMERICANS 


marry her, crown his life with her dear comradeship. 
Whatever obstacles were between them should melt 
before the intense purpose he would bring to bear 
upon accomplishing his heart’s desire. 

One of the few indulgences our hero had given him- 
self in his improved financial state was a riding-horse. 
A true Southerner in his love of the saddle, the long 
intermission in his exercise had been a deprivation he 
was glad now to make good. At rarer intervals than 
he liked he got off to visit the stable near the park 
where he kept his steed, and, there mounting, spend 
several hours in the open. 

On the morning after this unexpected talk with 
Sybil he fared gaily into bright winter sunshine, trav- 
ersing the park, and pursuing his way along the banks 
of the Hudson, thence into the interior, for a long 
ride. It was his hope thus to rid himself of super- 
abundant vitality 5 but as the hours progressed, his 
spirits seemed to him inexhaustible. It was as if he 
had been born again. All of life before him was a 
flower-garden, without a blight or decay in any plant 
of its parterres. Never had it occurred to him there 
was so much joyance in the world. From a looker- 
on he was suddenly transformed into a participant. 
Everything appeared possible that he desired. The 
yearning for travel he had so long kept under sprang 
up full-fledged and confident. With her, what added 
joy to view the places of his dreams ! She should be 
his guide, interpreter, his higher and finer intelligence, 
in all these matters. Means wherewithal, the sordid 
cares of life, did not enter into these pleasurable specu- 


GOOD AMERICANS 


51 


lations of Mr. Peter Davenant. He was strong to do 
all that man had done. Under her inspiration he 
would be expanded, completed, ready for everything 
required. 

Far up in the country north of the city limits he 
came upon a wheelman in temporary stress of circum- 
stance. Davenant, who exchanged a word with him, 
tarried, struck by the bonhomie of the young fellow’s 
manner, the frank look of his wide-open blue eyes. 

“ I am overtaken by disaster,” he had said with a 
laugh 5 “because one can’t attempt pleasuring near 
town on a mild Sunday like this without being 
crowded out. One lot of loud-mouthed revelers set 
on me, surrounded me, assimilated me. I freed my- 
self of them only at the last road-house, where they 
halted for refreshment. I have seen most of the na- 
tions on the move to-day, though of course it ’s far 
worse in summer. When my cordial friends stopped, 
I fled— with this result.” 

“ Our brotherhood of citizens is certainly not en- 
ticing when it goes abroad on such a Sunday as this,” 
said Davenant. 

“ The plague of it is, the same people would be in- 
teresting on their native heath. And I want to be 
interested. It is n’t because they ’re free and easy 
with me that I find them dull. I never saw anywhere 
a class attitude more independent than that of the all- 
pervading bourgeois in the environs of Paris on the 
first day of the week. Democratic social equality is 
at high-water mark there ; but it is not aggressive. 
It does not stick its elbow in your ribs, tread on your 
toes without apology, shout and hoot its consciousness 


62 


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of being as good as you although you may wear bet- 
ter clothes.” 

Davenant laughed. 

“ For so many years I ’ve known nothing else than 
jostling with the mob of commonplace, I suppose I ’m 
hardened. You, I take it, are a ‘ tenderfoot/ ” 

“ I suppose I am. That is, I have had the bad luck 
to be pitched head first into this community, to make 
my living out of it, with the training of an idler in 
foreign countries.” 

They talked for a while longer, then, at the bicycler’s 
suggestion, agreed to rendezvous for luncheon at the 
roadside hostelry of a Frenchman certified to be ca- 
pable of a capital omelette aux fines herbes, and good for 
a decent bottle of red wine. 

“ If you go there in summer,” added his new com- 
rade, “you will have Baptiste, with his napkin, wav- 
ing you into an arbor made of withered pine-branches 
overgrown with morning-glories and scarlet-runners, 
where he has strewn gravel underfoot, and sets out 
his tables with red claret-glasses and bunches of cheap 
flowers. Now we shall have to be content with a 
small inside room, if we are lucky enough to get it to 
ourselves.” 

When Davenant reached M. Baptiste’s little frame 
house, standing back from the road in a grove of trees, 
his companion had already ordered the luncheon and 
secured the inside room. A tiny table, spread invit- 
ingly, awaited them. And when to the omelet was 
added a dish of cutlets, broiled, not fried, with pota- 
toes bursting from jackets of light golden brown, to- 
gether with good bread, a plate of fruit, and the 


GOOD AMERICANS 


53 


promised bottle of French grape-juice, Davenant broke 
forth rejoicingly : 

“ 1 have passed this place a dozen times, and never 
dreamed of the treasure it contains.” 

“I have developed him,” said his friend. “Last 
year I found Baptiste struggling with the popular 
demand for custard-pie and doughnuts. I talked to 
him in his native tongue ; adjured him, by the bones 
and stew-pans of his ancestors, not to forget their 
cunning because transplanted to a land of far away. 
He has made quite a reputation by his cabbage farci 
aux saucissons. But I am bound to confess that his 
American dishes are as bad as you generally find them 
elsewhere.” 

Starting upon this substantial basis for acquain- 
tanceship, the two men fraternized rapidly. They 
talked of many topics, each finding in the other a cer- 
tain zest of surprise. Davenant had never met any 
one exactly like this fair, soft- voiced fellow, with the 
manner of a faineant and the build of an athlete, 
whose talk revealed habits and thoughts totally un- 
known to the hard- worked lawyer. His attitude to- 
ward life was that of one who, not being able to help 
himself, tries to make the best of his regrettable sur- 
roundings. Involuntarily, Davenant thought of a 
plant he had taken long ago from his mother's con- 
servatory and set out in a garden dug by him in the 
woods. The plant had done its best to live, but could 
not flourish. 

When the time came for them to share the score 
and part, they shook hands heartily. When the bicy- 
clist was out of sight ahead of him on the return to 


54 


GOOD AMERICANS 


town, Davenant remembered they had not exchanged 
names. 

That evening, on presenting himself at the house of 
Mr. Carnifex, to receive a warm welcome from the host 
and a quieter one from the young hostess, the three 
sat for a while about a wood fire in a dimly lighted 
drawing-room before dinner was announced. 

There was little in this room to suggest the femi- 
ninity of its presiding genius. No triplication of cur- 
tains at the windows, no portieres, no little tables 
perilously full of silver or china toys ; above all, no 
cushions, which, however much they add to the luxu- 
rious repose of modern life, induce as much disturb- 
ance-first, because of their bad habit of slipping 
away from the angles of the human frame where they 
are designed to be ; and, secondly, because under no 
circumstances will a housekeeper admit that she has 
enough of them. 

The friends of Mr. and Miss Carnifex were asked to 
take their ease in chairs or on couches covered in a 
dark silken stuff that had not been changed in years. 
A grand piano, a writing-table solidly equipped, and 
some healthy-looking palms and ferns growing in jars 
in the windows, gave the chief evidence of a woman’s 
rule there. Upon the Quakerish background of drab- 
painted walls hung some good pictures. A cabinet, 
and the mantelpiece crowded with Chinese porcelains 
of beauty and value, represented the host’s fancy in 
art. The room, in fine, while not in the least u pretty ” 
according to the canons of modern decoration, ap- 
peared to represent a leisurely lifetime that had 


GOOD AMERICANS 


55 


treated itself to a few good things and let the rest 
alone. The guest now enjoying its repose knew no 
consciousness of fleeting moments until Mr. Carnifex, 
crossing the room, tugged at a faded bell-pull wrought 
in worsted-work. 

“ Dinner,” he said to the man who answered. “We 
will wait no longer, dear, for Ainslie,” he added to his 
daughter. 

Simultaneously the door into the hall gave admis- 
sion to Davenant’s bicyclist of the morning. Both 
men looked pleased and surprised. 

u Then I need not introduce you ? ” said Mr. Carni- 
fex. 

u Only to give us names,” answered the newcomer, 
after he had made easy apologies to Miss Carnifex for 
his delay. “T at least have been dying to know his ” 

The story of their meeting and impromptu luncheon 
broke the ice of the first moments at table in a large, 
bare refectory, where conspicuous objects were the 
coal-hod, an old-fashioned dinner-tray, and a series of 
Copley and St. Memin portraits on the walls. 

The service of Canton-blue porcelain, with the fid- 
dle-patterned silver spoons and forks, dimly recalled 
to Davenant an old house in Charleston where, as a 
lad, he was urged to two helpings of everything,— 
where the maiden hostess wore “ sausage-puffs ” under 
her cap,— and where his youthful imagination was 
intoxicated by the varieties of sweet pickles strung 
about the board in leaf-shaped dishes of the same 
azure tint. 

The dinner was good, the wines better, the host de- 
lightful. Agatha, who talked little, made herself most 


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agreeable. When, afterward, Davenant asked a girl 
why she had called Miss Carnifex “a man’s woman,” 
he received this answer : 

“ Oh, because she makes it a point to let men have 
their way, beginning with that nice old tyrant, her 
papa.” 

The truth was, Agatha possessed so wide a scope in 
her father’s house that she had never felt able to con- 
template leaving it for another man’s. Peter had not 
been with them ten minutes before discovering that 
on all practical matters she ruled her parent with a 
humorous assumption of greater age and knowledge 
than his own, although letting him go under loose rein 
whenever his hobbies were concerned. 

At twenty-six she esteemed herself an old maid ; and 
the repose which the abandonment of concern on the 
marriage question gave to her manner induced many 
men to confide in her their affairs with other women. 
Hamilton Ainslie, for example, a cousin in the third 
or fourth degree, had told her about his passion for 
Sybil Gwynne almost as soon as that emotion had 
gained a recognized place in his manly bosom. 

When Ainslie had come back from Europe to live 
in New York, Agatha had decided upon making him 
her “mission.” She considered him as one more 
sinned against than sinning, a product of the modern 
custom of absenteeism among Americans who live 
abroad and bring up their children in alien fashions. 
She had an idea she could do him good, rouse his 
dormant patriotism, make him throw off the sloth 
resulting from having been a citizen of the world 
when he ought to have been a citizen of the nursery. 


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67 


Ainslie liked her lectures, her down-setting way 
with him, her assumption of extreme old age and 
matronly dignity with a man who was her senior by 
two years. He treated her with courtesy and perfect 
good humor. His only grudge against her was that 
she could not be brought to concede that Sybil G wynne 
was born into the world to make a helpmate for him. 

“ My dear Hamilton, you would be a pair of babes 
in the wood,” she had said six months before, knitting 
her forehead and throwing from it a little lock wont 
to escape and confer upon her handsome, serious face 
a mutinous expression not displeasing to the eye. 
11 Promise me that you will not commit yourself until 
you have thought over it a year.” 

u I may as well promise,” he had said. “ In the first 
place, she does not yet see the thing in the light I do. 
In the next, between us we could n’t afford any kind 
of house or trap, or amusements or travels, such as the 
girls of her set think indispensable.” 

“ What do men of your set think about them f ” 

“ We don’t think,” said Ainslie. “ The times are too 
hard upon us. We simply drift.” 

The talk at Mr. Carnifex’s table to-night gave Dave- 
nant a fresh sense of the pleasure to be had from rub- 
bing wits and exchanging views with people of his 
own kind. Mr. Carnifex and his daughter would have 
meant so much to him had he only been able to claim 
their acquaintance during the dull evenings of the 
working-years past ! And Ainslie, despite his light 
touch of and mocking indifference to real things, had 
stuff in him undoubtedly. 

Agatha’s only fear, that her father would bring the 


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conversation aronnd to the folly of a young man of 
ambition and parts fixing his fancy on a girl of fash- 
ionable life, was set at rest. Women entered in no 
shape into the evening’s discussion. 

When the visitors took leave, they walked together 
as far as the street where Davenant turned off. 

11 Good night,” he said. 11 1 have to thank you for 
a very jolly day. What fun it would be, now, were I 
to meet you— by Jove ! I am to meet you, for Mrs. 
Stanley said you are coming— to-morrow night.” 

u Of course I am coming,” answered Ainslie, lightly. 
u Do not we all fly at Mrs. Stanley’s bidding ? ” 

At this point Davenant was guilty of a weakness. 
He wished to speak aloud a name that had haunted 
his brain-cells persistently. 

u I believe it ’s to be a small party like to-night’s ?— 
nobody besides our hostess, except Miss Gwynne and 
you and me.” 

“ Miss Gwynne and you and me,” repeated Ainslie, 
assentingly ; and the pair separated. 


IV 


AVENANT was taking off his overcoat 
in custody of two or three of Mrs. 
Stanley’s liveried appendages, when 
the grille that served as a portal to 
her spacious vestibule opened to ad- 
mit Ainslie, as usual on the run and 
a little out of breath. 

“ Those hanged cable-cars ! ” he said. “ Nice way for 
a man to come out to dinner, is n’t it ? I started right 
enough, standing on my feet, wedged in by a jam • but 
gradually the crowd increased till I was squeezed up- 
ward, and I ended by crawling out over their shoul- 
ders. As I left I heard an Irishman, who had been for 
a long time hanging on to a strap, cry out to the rest 
of ’em, ‘ Be jabers ! have n’t any of yez homes ? ’ ” 

A very young flunky, who was depositing Mr. Ains- 
lie’s stick in a porcelain jar, smiled at this with sym- 
pathetic understanding. 

“ What a contrast between that mob and this kind 
of thing ! ” said Ainslie, as, assured that their hostess 
would be down-stairs in a minute, they were ushered 
into an empty room of state. “ I know her minutes,” 
Ainslie added ; “we might as well Hake it easy’ till 
we see her.” 



59 



60 


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He deposited himself comfortably in the corner of 
a deep, elastic sofa, shaded from the fire on one side 
by a plate-glass screen, and from a lamp on the other 
by a mass of spiky ferns. 

Davenant, standing, his back to the blaze, looked 
about him with interest. The scheme of the room 
was old French, the fittings in pale brocades and gilt, 
superbly carried out by masters of their craft. 
Throughout, the taste was unimpeachable. A pow- 
dered marquise of the ancient regime might here have 
received corn-tiers and cardinals in high-heeled shoes. 

But there was no mistress to complete it. The next 
arrival was an attache of one of the foreign embassies 
at Washington, a swart man with beady black eyes, 
and black hair cut short and standing stiff upon his 
head. He was adorned with turquoise studs sur- 
rounded by diamonds, and stood shivering on the rug, 
complaining of the chill of the New York climate. 

After another interval, Mr. Cleve appeared. The 
little gentleman had dressed hurriedly, for the bow of 
his necktie had worked around under one ear, and the 
lining of a pocket was displayed upon the tail of his 
coat. 

11 Knew it was no earthly use to be here when she 
asked me,” he exclaimed, cheerfully submitting to 
Ainslie’s repair of his disheveled toilet. “ For heaven’s 
sake, Ainslie, lend me a handkerchief— I ’ve dropped 
mine putting it in my pocket ; or I ’ll go send one of 
those fellows outside up to Jack’s dressing-room to get 
me one of his. Thanks. A man should always carry 
two. Heard the last Boston story, about that electri- 
cal chap showing off his bath-tub ? ” 


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61 


“ Try another, Cleve,” said Ainslie, lazily. “ Every- 
body ’s heard that.” 

“Well, then, what do yon say to Mark Twain’s 
speech before a girls’ college the other day ?— when he 
remarked his ambition is to be a professor— of telling 
anecdotes ? ” 

u Hush ! ” said Ainslie, mysteriously. “ On no ac- 
count divulge that here ! ” 

“ Eh ! why not ? ” asked Cleve, much rattled. “ By 
Jove, Ainslie, you startled me ! I believe you just 
want to run me off the track ! ” 

“ My dear man, this is hardly the hour for humor- 
ous narration,” said Ainslie. “ For my own part, I am 
starving j I had nothing for luncheon to-day but six 
raw oysters, eaten while standing before a counter. 
There is within me a gnawing void that stories only 
irritate and do not fill. If our hostess does not soon 
show up, I shall go and beg for a biscuit in the 
pantry.” 

The arrival of Miss Gwynne, looking so crisply 
beautiful and unruffled that the hearts of two men 
leaped up within them at sight of her, was the prelude 
for Mrs. Stanley’s descent like an empress among her 
guests. 

Davenant, who led the way with her across a wide 
marble hall into a tapestried dining-room, discerned 
that it was their matron’s fancy to single him out to- 
night for special favor. He envied old Cleve, upon 
whose cork-screwed coat-sleeve Sybil’s hand rested, 
Ainslie and the diplomat bringing up the rear. What 
a bore it was going to be to dance attendance all the 
evening upon an oldish woman’s coquetries ! (That 


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phrase alone, as it became formulated in Davenant’s 
mind, bewrayed him as an outsider to fashion.) 

It was not until they were in Mrs. Stanley’s landau 
on the way to the opera-house— the two young men 
following in a cab— that he had a moment’s speech 
with Sybil. 

“Did you enjoy the Crawfords?” was all he could 
think of to relieve his overflowing soul. 

“Yes— no— I really forget,” said she, laughing. 
“ One does not remember a party two or three days old. 
I suppose it was like all the rest. You know how 
exactly they are alike.” 

“ I have never been to a 1 function ’ in town,” he said 
simply— “at least of your kind. I suppose I might 
have done so had I not been too busy and too indif- 
ferent— till now.” 

“ Now we are bringing you out,” she said gleefully. 
“We shall conquer, never fear.” 

“ I hope not. It would be a sad interruption to my 
pursuits. But I shall be deeply grateful for any 
crumbs you may choose to throw me of your com- 
panionship.” 

“ My aunt has an afternoon affair soon, and I asked 
her to send you a card that you ’ll get to-morrow. It ’s 
a musicale, and there ’ll be men dropping in as late as 
seven.” 

“An afternoon affair,” thought he, remembering 
his recent scorn of such methods of reunion. But he 
was now wise enough to know that this meant an 
opening of the door to him, behind which was to be 
found the chief delight of life— and so accepted the 
invitation. 


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63 


The opera, which he had never seen from one of the 
parterre boxes, having for many seasons frequented it 
in the parquet stalls or galleries, might have been a 
dumb-show, except during those numbers when the 
famous singers occupied the stage. Then, only, the 
people about him stopped talking; the young men 
ceased to go and come, and bestow little squeezes of 
the hand in greeting and saying good-by to the ladies 
in the boxes ; the whole vast assemblage focused its 
attention upon the greatest artists of the age. During 
these thrilling intervals Davenant felt the charm of 
vicinity to Sybil. Jostled to the rear by succeeding 
callers, he stood in the shadow, looking at the back of 
her graceful head and neck, and investing her with all 
the fantastic attributes of a lover’s imaginings. Or 
else, wandering to some distant part of the house, he 
would enjoy her beauty from another point of view. 

Ainslie, on the contrary, after hanging his hat and 
coat in the antechamber of the Stanleys’ box, resorted 
with great diligence to calling upon his friends, ap- 
pearing in turn in most of the boxes of the horseshoe, 
where he was well received, and seemed to enjoy him- 
self with impartiality. 

Once Mr. Cleve, who had been peppering his stories 
around the half-circle, came upon Davenant stalking 
about the lobby in solitary state. 

“ My dear fellow, stop with me, and let us have two 
whiffs of a cigarette,” said Cleve, benignantly. “If 
we join any of those club gossips who are out here, we 
shall be talked to death ; they are the most untiring 
fishers for scandal. And, do you know, I find it sim- 
ply disgusting the way these millionaire stock-holders 


64 


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put their heads together and speak about nothing but 
their schemes for amusing themselves.” 

“ What are they to do? Their wealth handicaps 
them for politics. They have no excuse to work. To 
my mind, their Monte Cristo business is very pictur- 
esque.” 

“ Don't mistake me. I 'm not envious. So long as 
I get asked to their banquets, sail on their yachts, 
enjoy their operas, or make trips in their private cars, 
I 'm quite comfortable, personally. But one feels op- 
pressed by segregated fortunes. Look at these four 
chaps next us, for example. Fancy what their united 
incomes represent ! It 's f atiguing, I tell you. It robs 
the rest of us of ambition to make moderate incomes 
for ourselves. It 's produced the dreadful discontent 
of modern good society. Why, man, in all the boxes 
where I ; ve called to-night, I can hardly say I 've seen 
one happy woman— one of the nice, jolly, restful kind 
of matrons, I mean, who can laugh outright, and 
enjoy fun, and speak naturally. Most of 'em are 
keeping watch on the others, to see they don't get 
ahead in the social race. If you want to see what I 
mean, just look at the difference in the women's faces 
when the house is quiet.” 

Davenant, guiltily aware of having looked at but 
one woman's face, could not, for the life of him, feel 
depressed by Mr. Cleve's jeremiads. 

u The worst of it is the effect it has upon the young 
'uns,” went on Cleve. “The debutantes, like their 
mamas, are calculating how to keep along with the 
richest, most extravagant set in town. Nothing else 
seems to them worth living for. To see some of those 


GOOD AMERICANS 


65 


little rosy young faces kindle with scheming or un- 
satisfied longing makes me sick, I tell you. As to the 
young men, the whole lot of ’em, from club loungers 
to fellows that have just left college, are deliberately 
and confessedly ‘on the make/ They won’t waste 
themselves on girls whose mothers can’t entertain ’em 
at dinner, or send ’em ball-tickets, or give ’em places 
at the opera. If the directors here wanted an emblem 
of high society to adorn the opera-house, they could n’t 
have done better, in my opinion, than set up yonder, 
over the proscenium arch, the image of a golden calf.” 

“And yet you—” began Davenant, laughing. 

“I am of ‘high society ’—certainly j but at least I 
pay my way by courtesy and civility and helping to 
make things go. Do you know why I like to put in a 
month in England every summer ? Because there the 
greater the lady, the more unpretending she is. And 
if they love and covet wealth and place just as much 
as we do over here, they keep their longings in the 
background of every-day conversation. I went down 
this morning, by the way, and booked to sail in May 
in Teutonic .” 

“ Lucky mortal ! ” said Davenant. 

Although he affected to pooh-pooh them, Cleve’s 
sharp strictures had begun to exert upon him a sub- 
duing influence. They made him realize the distance 
between Sybil and a brain-worker who could never 
hope to offer her any of these requisites of her set. 
Until now he had been overcome by the dazzling sug- 
gestions of his hope that she might grow to care for 
him. Such homes as those of Mrs. Grantham and 
Mr. Carnifex had not seemed to him impossible of 


66 


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realization. The sumptuous domicile of Mrs. Stanley 
had affected him as merely one of the side-shows of 
modern plutocracy. The interior in which a man of 
moderate success in a professional career may hope to 
install the wife he loves was all-sufficient for Dave- 
nant’s ambitions. But now that it appeared Mrs. 
Stanley’s belongings were the standard, where was he 
in the race ? 

As he approached the box at the beginning of the 
last act, Ainslie, in high good humor, had but just 
come out of it. 

“My dear fellow,” he said, “it is as well you are 
going back. Our hostess is in the sulks. She thinks 
you have ignored her charms.” 

“ But I was pushed out of my place,” said Davenant, 
“ by all that swarm of men.” 

“ You should have held it, and let the whole house 
see you had eyes only for her.” 

“ Why in the deuce did n’t you tell me ? ” 

“Because, at the rate you were swimming along 
with all these women,— Mrs. Stanley, Miss Carnifex, 
and Miss Gwynne swearing by you,— I thought you 
were an old hand. Never mind ; there is time enough 
to redeem yourself. She has got only the attache now, 
who bores her ; while Miss Gwynne has her string full 
of men. Go and swell Mrs. Stanley’s number, and all 
may yet be well.” 

“ Otherwise ? ” 

“You will be forgotten before the next opera night.” 

“ I wonder Miss Gwynne is friends with that sort of 
a purposeless vagrant,” said Davenant, irrepressibly. 

“ Miss Gwynne knows nothing better. Miss Gwynne, 


GOOD AMERICANS 


67 


taken out of these surroundings, would be completely 
at a loss. Miss Gwynne is intended to grace such an 
establishment as that we dined in to-night— to lead 
just such a life as her friend Mrs. Stanley.” 

“ Heaven forbid!” exclaimed Davenant, with 
warmth. 

Something in the glow of his honest face warned 
Ainslie, who, stopping short, looked at him again. 

“ Don’t, my dear fellow, don’t ! ” he said briefly, with 
a sort of tightening about his mobile lips. 

Davenant understood. 

As they opened the box door it became apparent 
that Mrs. Stanley had a new visitor in the person of 
a man well on in years, smooth-shaven and intelligent- 
looking, his features marked with a thousand lines of 
care. 

“ Surely that is Mr. Mortimer,” said Davenant, who 
saw only the back hair of a celebrated capitalist. 

“ ‘ Incarnate electricity,’ they call him,” said Ainslie. 
u Only death will arrest his progress, though quite a 
number of fair ladies have tried to do so.” 

a I know him well,” said Davenant. 

His enormous success in affairs, his boundless 
popularity with the New York public, his vast inter- 
ests in railroads networked over this continent and in 
other countries, made of this individual a power not 
to be overlooked. His face had been so variously 
reproduced for the benefit of his fellow-citizens that 
there was left for it only the immortality of a postage- 
stamp. When Davenant resumed his seat behind his 
hostess, she was saying in a wondering tone to Mr. 
Mortimer : 


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u But at five o’clock you were in Albany ! ” 

11 When I received your telephone message to dine 
with you and Miss G wynne to-night— repeated to me 
from home— I was ; but at 6 : 23 exactly I left the 
Albany station in a special consisting of my own car, 
a common coach for ballast, and the best of the new 
engines. At the end of two hours, thirty-six minutes, 
and nine seconds we ran into the Grand Central— too 
late to dine with you, but not too late, I trust, to pre- 
sent my compliments to the ladies.” 

“ What gallantry ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Stanley. “ It is 
too bad I never can think of asking people till so 
late.” 

Davenant saw that, although Sybil heard it, she did 
not honor Mr. Mortimer’s flattering announcement by 
turning around. He also perceived that the great 
man bestowed in vain several pathetically anxious 
glances upon Sybil’s profile. 

This revelation, coupled with what a flash had re- 
vealed to him about Ainslie, could not be said to 
surprise Davenant. According to his way of think- 
ing, it would have been natural had half the men in 
the opera-house experienced the same sweet pain. 
But when, after a few words with Mrs. Stanley, he 
gained possession of the chair behind Sybil, all the 
doubts, fears, revelations of the last hours since he 
had ventured into this her kingdom, fell away. Again 
he was possessed by the overpowering belief that it 
was he, and none other, who should assert his claim 
upon her and win her love. That accomplished, how 
was it possible for anything else to matter ? 

“ You know Mr. Davenant?” asked Mrs. Stanley of 


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Mr. Mortimer, having seen a friendly nod exchanged 
between them. 

“Yes; but I thought he was a misogynist, or at 
least a fashion-hater. I have never before seen him in 
society. He is a man of strong character ; aggressive, 
but always polite ; a hard hitter, a fearless adversary, 
of intense conviction and persistence—” 

“ Dear me ! ” interrupted the lady. “ I was begin- 
ning to think there is nothing in him at all.” 

“I must go now,” said Mr. Mortimer, rising. “A 
look in at the club, where I arranged to meet some 
men ; then home, to spend half the night at work with 
my stenographer. There will be a reporter sitting on 
my door-step, another in the hall, and a third at the 
keyhole of my study. Good-by, and ask me to dinner 
again when I am not in Albany.” 

As he left the box, Miss Gwynne, forsaking her talk 
with Davenant, bestowed upon the man of affairs the 
tips of her white-gloved fingers. Mr. Mortimer, 
hesitating for a moment as if he would say something 
he could not exactly put into words, bowed, smiled, 
and withdrew. 

u My dear, you are stony-hearted,” said Mrs. Stan- 
ley, hardly waiting till their distinguished visitor was 
out of hearing. “ If you but said the word, you ’d 
have man, fortune, railroads, engines, newspapers, 
and reporters— all at your feet.” 

“I had as soon live with my ear to a telephone,” 
said Sybil, curling her lip, “or in the engine-room of 
a ship.” 

“ Ah, no,” an audacious listener thought to himself ; 
“ there is something better in store for her than an 


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old man’s infatuation. I am going to make her life 
glorious with my love.” 

Davenant no sooner made acquaintance with Sybil’s 
natural protector, than he divined that lady’s antago- 
nism toward him. No doubt Mrs. Stanley had in- 
formed Mrs. Lewiston of the undisguised emotion 
Sybil had aroused in him on the two known occasions 
of their meeting. Sybil had taken care to say nothing 
to any one of that brief interview in the street the 
night of Mrs. Crawford’s ball, the memory of which 
excited her more than she liked to admit to herself. 

Mrs. St. Clair Lewiston was a high-nosed dame with 
a roseate countenance, a belle of the fifties, whose 
figure still gave assurance of being smartly laced. 
Her hair, much craped, and showing no beginnings or 
endings, was of a rich copper hue. Her friends 
thought it better had Mrs. Lewiston selected any 
other tint. Her costumes were rigorously d la mode, 
her ornaments confined to a few fine emeralds and 
sapphires long and favorably known in New York. 
But here her concessions to modernity ceased. While 
other people were discarding old furniture, Mrs. Lew- 
iston pulled all of hers to the front. Her walls were 
a museum of early colonial relics. Since she could 
not equal Mrs. Stanley in American splendor, she had 
fallen back upon the pose of American aristocracy. 

Some excuse might be made for this good lady’s 
habitual stern expression of countenance. Seen driv- 
ing alone in her victoria, her face revealed the wear 
and tear of a sad domestic experience. Her husband 
having died of consequences of dissipation, her only 


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71 


son was now in a fair way to follow tlie paternal lead. 
u Young ” St. Clair Lewiston did not, however, live at 
home. When he was not off on other people’s yachts 
and four-in-hands, idling abroad, or lounging at the 
clubs, his prematurely aged face and form were con- 
signed to the seclusion of chambers in a modish quar- 
ter up-town. 

Mrs. Lewiston was fond of Sybil, after her lights. 
The distinction of chaperoning so successful an im- 
portation renewed in her some of her vanished zest in 
social intercourse. The girl, who was lonely for love, 
had put forth little feelers of affection that attached 
themselves in a way to her aunt’s polished surface. In 
default of tenderness, which she did not possess, Mrs. 
Lewiston gave Sybil material bounty. It was not 
generally known that Sybil’s income, owing to the 
heedless management of her peripatetic mother, had 
shrunk under poor investments to be a very slim 
affair. She was virtually dependent on her aunt. 
Mrs. Lewiston had already conveyed to her her in- 
tention, should Sybil make a suitable marriage, of 
doing by her as she would have done by a daughter 
of her own, her son St. Clair being already in posses- 
sion of an independent fortune larger than was good 
for him. The only condition put upon this liberal 
offer was that during the first year or two of Sybil’s 
married life she should form a common establishment 
with her aunt. “At least,” Mrs. Lewiston had said, 
“until Annie James grows up”— Annie James being 
the daughter of an impecunious first cousin who might 
be depended upon to cede parental rights in that 
young person so soon as she had acquired inches and 


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accomplishments to justify her in succeeding Sybil as 
companion. 

Mrs. Lewiston felt that in taking this attitude she 
was acting extremely well; and as long as Sybil 
showed no sign of intended marriage with any one, 
her aunt was all the better pleased. Experience had 
convinced her that a woman is peaceful only when 
there are no men in the house. 

It will be judged, therefore, that, although lapped in 
luxury, Miss Gwynne was liable to be denuded, like 
Cinderella, of her finery. So little had the question of 
money or money’s worth entered into Sybil’s thoughts, 
this condition caused her no anxiety. She had been 
brought up by her mother in ignorance of the com- 
mon struggles of mankind, since, if ever a pinch of 
necessity for funds had come to Mrs. Gwynne, she had 
met it by drawing on her principal. 

Mrs. Lewiston, in a high toilet of black silk and 
gauze, incrusted on the upper and lower portions 
with beetles of glistening jet, stood near the door of 
her drawing-room, shaking hands disapprovingly with 
the guests bidden to her musicale. A prominent 
object of her attire was the largest of the Lewdston 
emeralds, worn as a brooch beneath her double chin. 
As soon as newcomers had been permitted a glimpse 
at this jewel, they were hastily passed along into the 
throng. 

Davenant, whose name had been duly enunciated to 
his hostess by her butler, was honored by a stare. 
While he was still casting about for some speech that 
would preserve the golden mean between self-respect 


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73 


and gratitude for her civility in asking him, the same 
functionary cut him short by announcing other guests. 

“ Miss G- wynne ? ” Peter managed to ask, by way of 
fixing his identity -as an acquaintance of the house. 

“ My niece is in there,” gruffly observed the hostess, 
pointing toward the middle room, wherein rows of gilt 
cane-seated chairs formed a barricade about a grand 
piano and some music stands. 

“ This great lady would make a capital matron for 
a city prison,” said the outlaw, mentally. He felt cer- 
tain she had heard of and disapproved his attentions 
to her niece. 

Beneath an “acacia, waving yellow hair,” he now 
beheld Sybil, garbed in some diaphanous texture of 
faint amber hue, with a large bunch of purple violets 
at her breast. While busily engaged in receiving the 
overflow of people from the front room, and in direct- 
ing them to seats, she gave Davenant a smile that did 
not encourage him to follow the example of the crowd 
and pass up forward. 

“May I— should I— stand here by you?” he asked 
eagerly, taking his place in the angle of a chimney- 
piece at her elbow. 

“ Not unless you are willing to be useful. Look at 
Mr. Ainslie, straightening chairs like an angel.” 

The banality jarred upon Davenant. It was quite 
out of his line to do anything “ like an angel ” j but, 
then, from her lips even nonsense was attractive. 

“ Let me stay where I can admire Ainslie,” he said 
lightly. Already it was his ambition to fit himself to 
his surroundings. As one person after another spoke 
to her, he noted that she had some trifle light as air 


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for each in turn ; that she returned interested com- 
ments upon information seeming to him like apples of 
the Dead Sea ; that she was, in a word, thoroughly 
“ of ” her surroundings. 

When Sybil was too much occupied to speak to him, 
Davenant could not forego hearing the chat that went 
on in his vicinity. He was measurably impressed by 
a close and intimate discussion .between two ladies 
who talked, usually speaking both at once, concerning 
operations in surgery recently performed upon the 
husband of one and the daughter of the other. Path- 
ological details, rattled off glibly and with evident 
relish, chilled his blood and revolted his sense of de- 
cency. From this the ladies went on to cooks ; and by 
the time they had winged their flight to the remar- 
riage of a celebrated divorcee the first number of the 
program cut them short. This was the startling ap- 
parition of four pretty and fashionably gowned young 
women, in the attitudes of Burne-Jones’s seraphs, play- 
ing upon cornets, which performance, having created 
an American success in Mayfair the year before, had 
now returned to delight its native wilds. After this the 
usual list of songs and violin solos wore itself along. 

Davenant, who saw Mrs. Grantham sitting in a 
corner, struggled across to her. Sybil having deserted 
him, his own coign of vantage had lost its value. 

“ I breathe free,” said he, straightening himself in a 
doorway close to Katrina’s retreat. “ My dear madam, 
you were my fairy sponsor in polite circles. Shall I 
ever become one of those flexible, supple creatures, 
with all angles rubbed away, and unwearying calves, 
who enjoy it ? ” 


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75 


“ I fear I can hardly picture you as the perfected 
social animal.” 

“ When I saw you I was just about to get upon my 
hind legs and roar, from fatigue.” 

“Have you seen Miss Carnifex? She is in yonder 
somewhere.” 

“ Is she ? ” said he, without much interest and with- 
out looking round. 

“Yes. I hear you dined with them Sunday. It is 
in her own home one sees Agatha at her best.” 

“ Her father is a delightful old boy, I think. Looks 
like a sucking dove, and delivers himself of the most 
fiery sentiments. And the air of their house is refresh- 
ing.” 

This was well, but not good enough for Mrs. Grant- 
ham. 

“ Agatha needs only opportunity to develop as much 
tenderness as she has good sense and tact. It is as 
well, perhaps, that she did not marry early. She has 
had too many problems to work out.” 

“ She is indeed an admirable girl,” exclaimed Dave- 
nant, with interest $ and, feeling encouraged, the match- 
maker went on : 

“But if she marries now, Agatha should never 
separate from her father ; it would break him up ut- 
terly. The man who seeks her should consider that.” 

“ I should think Mr. Carnifex would be a sprightly 
addition to any establishment.” 

“Agatha’s husband should make up his mind to 
hang his hat in Mr. Carnifex’s front hall. That old 
house is its master’s shell. Although he has a com- 
fortable fortune, nothing would induce him to move 


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out. But it is really a huge house. Our old-fashioned 
New York dwellings, with the rooms on either side 
the hall, must remind you of your Southern homes. 
Mr. Carnifex’s has always made me think of some I 
have seen in Richmond and Charleston.” 

“I hope no son-in-law will arise cruel enough to 
uproot the old gentleman,” remarked Davenant, cheer- 
fully. 

Mrs. Grantham was silent for a minute. She felt 
that she had exhausted the subject of Mr. Carnifex’s 
house. 

“ I met there a very jolly fellow called Ainslie ,” re- 
sumed Davenant. 

“ Ainslie ! ” she exclaimed. “ Surely he is not your 
sort. They tell me he has been following after Sybil 
Gwynne for months and can do nothing for love of 
her.” 

Davenant’s heart gave a guilty throb. Did his kind 
friend only know how much, in that respect, he was 
of Ainslie’s “ sort ” ! 

u Miss Gwynne looks her loveliest to-day,” he said, 
with an attempt to speak indifferently. 

u I hope it is not because that man her mother 
wanted her to marry has just appeared again. Mrs. 
Arden tells me he is considered the most likely of all 
Miss Gwynne’s suitors— one that even Mrs. Lewiston 
might look at without turning him. into stone. Hush ! 
There is Mme. Amethyst beginning a song. She is 
what we have all been waiting for, to make us forget 
the rest.” 

The skylark singing of a favorite prim a donna 
might have been that of any other, for all Davenant 


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77 


heard of it. Presently, when some people came to 
speak with Mrs. Grantham, he wandered off into the 
tea-room. Sybil, standing near the table, was in the 
act of pouring cream into a cup held by a fair man of 
fine proportions and soldierly bearing. 

“ That ’s he— that ’s Captain Cameron,” said a girl, 
talking to her friend. What followed came to Dave- 
nant in snatches : 

“ He got in this morning, on the Lucania, and has 
lost no time.” 

“ She looks flushed and nervous. I wonder if it ’s 
a ‘go’?” 

“ Everybody in Homburg said last summer she had 
thrown him over twice. Seems it ’s an old affair. 
He ’s one of the easy-going kind, apparently. A 
beauty ; don’t you think so ? ” 

“ Hum ! not that ; but he looks sensible and nice ; 
and I like Scotchmen when they are nice. The great 
thing about him is his prospects. Lord Hunting- 
tower’s heir— and Lord Huntingtower ’s past eighty. 
First name ’s John, called Ian. Rather quaint, is n’t it ? 
He has an old house in the Yale of Strathmore. The 
Stanleys spent three days with him last year. Going 
on to Canada to join the staff of the governor-general.” 

“ I don’t care whether she ’s refused him or not ; 
any one with half an eye can see she ’s badly rattled, 
now. Well as I know Sybil Gwynne, I never saw her 
look like that before.” 

Davenant stood rooted to the floor. For the first 
time in his life the rage of jealousy swelled in his 
heart. Not knowing how to deal with it, he walked 
out of the house. 


Y 



HE sight of Ian Cameron’s kind, patient 
face always brought back to Sybil 
vividly the occasion of their first 
meeting, at a German watering-place, 
where her mother had once stopped 
for the cure, when Sybil was eighteen. 
The two ladies, wearying of the monotony of meals in 
their sitting-room, had descended to the table d’hote. 
The young soldier, detained in the dull place by a 
twisted ankle, found them an agreeable variety. From 
acquaintanceship on the ground of several friends in 
common, they had passed to friendship. Cameron 
had found time to join them at Dinard later on, where 
Mrs. Gwynne was profiting by her cure so far as to 
attempt to enjoy life with the fashionable world. 
Cameron, seeing in the haggard woman’s face that 
which her daughter could not see, urged Mrs. Gwynne 
to give up gaiety, and go to a quiet little village in 
Brittany, where he knew of a house in which she 
might be comfortable. Mrs. Gwynne, acquiescing in 
this suggestion with a sort of gasping eagerness to 
find some one who would take the direction of her 
affairs out of her hands, betrayed her physical and 
mental weakness. She was indeed in a deplorable 
78 


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79 


condition. Death at hand, her money matters in dis- 
order, her natural friends and protectors in America, 
she felt overwhelmed with a longing for her forsaken 
birthplace, coupled with a shuddering dread of her last 
journey home, in a box down in the hold of a tossing 
ship. 

They went to the little country house suggested. 
Sybil, frightened and helpless, knew not what else to 
do. An old governess (an Englishwoman who had 
trained several Ladies Ermyntrude and Honorable 
Ethels for their world, before taking in charge the 
young American) came back at her call, and remained 
with her until the end. Her mother’s French maid, 
the garde-malade, and the doctor were, otherwise, in 
that dread moment the only substitutes for a family 
circle. Before death came, Mrs. Gwynne told Sybil 
that young Cameron had spoken of his hope one day 
to make her his wife, of his good prospects and con- 
nections, and, finally, had offered to marry Sybil at 
once. But Sybil, who cared for him only as a friend 
of both storm and sunshine, could not give her mother 
the assurance she desired. 

The arrival of Mrs. Lewiston directly after her sis- 
ter’s demise, and while yet the survivors were under- 
going the experience that makes the formalities after 
death in a foreign country so much more distressing 
than at home, gave Sybil a refuge. Her aunt, who 
had for years been in strained relations with her 
mother, was attracted by the girl’s grace and beauty, 
and determined at once to appropriate them. Sybil, 
with tears and thanks, had bidden farewell to her hon- 
est suitor j and Cameron, hard hit by the pretty crea- 


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ture, went off determining to put her out of his 
thoughts forever. 

When he had next met her, three years later, Sybil 
was the queen-rose of a rosebud garden of American 
and English girls at gay Homburg. She was well 
placed, admired, reputed to be the heiress of her 
wealthy relative. Upon her had been set the cachet 
of royal notice ; and a duchess of his acquaintance had 
told Cameron that one could see Miss Gwynne had 
been brought up out of America. 

Welcomed by Sybil with unexhausted gratitude and 
kind remembrance, he had seen her every day for a 
week, at the end of which time he had proposed to 
her again, and was again refused. The day following 
this second misadventure saw Cameron returning to 
England. In addition to his usual luggage, he carried 
with him the girl’s affectionate assurance that although 
she could not see her way to marry him, it was only 
because she did not consider her want of love a coun- 
terpart to sincere and chivalrous devotion such as his. 
She had every confidence in him ; he was the most 
noble and loyal friend she had ever had : but indeed, 
indeed, she had no wish to marry Cameron or any one. 
She had a great deal more of life to know before she 
could settle down. Had not she, for example, passed 
only a single winter in America since she had left off 
living there at the age of twelve ? 

Toward the close of Sybil’s second season in Amer- 
ica, Cameron had, as has been seen, suddenly made 
his appearance in New York. Through their mutual 
acquaintance Mrs. Stanley (whom he had called upon 
before luncheon, almost as soon as he had changed his 


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81 


clothes at his hotel, after driving up-town from the 
docks) the gallant captain had ascertained the address 
of his charmer. Mrs. Stanley had also informed him 
of the festivity on the cards at the Lewiston mansion 
that afternoon, and had invited him to let her pick 
him up at his hotel and drive there. 

At four o’clock Cameron had been ready, and 
eagerly ambulant through the corridors of the hos- 
telry. About half-past five Mrs. Stanley’s footman 
had peered in the vestibule doors, and requested a 
hall-boy to inform Captain Cameron that the carriage 
was in waiting. A little later, as we have seen, he 
reached Mrs. Lewiston’s, after the music, but in time 
for tea. 

There is no saying that Sybil was not stirred by the 
apparition of her faithful knight. As soon as she 
looked into his eyes she knew what he had Come for. 
The fiction of his intention to go to Canada might 
serve with the general public. Sybil understood him, 
and trembled. When she had parted with him last, 
it was with the feeling that she had made a narrow 
escape from surrendering her freedom into his hands ; 
and now, though this was the western hemisphere, 
nothing could protect her from again running the 
same risk. 

Sybil’s bold determination was to assume with him 
the cordial, friendly attitude he deserved; to be so 
friendly, indeed, that her unquenchable suitor might 
see from the beginning there could be between them 
no question of another tie. But she reckoned without 
her public of New York. 

For the talk of the town, temporarily lacking an- 


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other subject, centered itself with almost passionate 
activity upon the engagement reputed to exist be- 
tween Miss Gwynne and Captain Cameron. The un- 
fortunate young people found themselves exposed to 
a publicity such as is attracted to two great nations 
on the verge of war. Not only were all known, and 
many imagined, incidents in the history of both 
brought up for discussion at dinners, teas, balls, and 
clubs, but that last misery of sentient man befell 
them— the newspapers took them up. Cameron, an 
unassuming young man who had visited New York 
before and enjoyed its brilliant hospitality, bore his 
ordeal with good humor and philosophy. But one 
day, coming down-stairs at his hotel, he found the 
hall porter and a bell-boy with their heads together, 
giggling over the head-lines beneath two dreadful 
pictures purporting to be of him and the young lady 
in the case : 

A CAPTAIN WHO EXPECTS TO BE AN EARL ! 


AN AMERICAN MISS WHO WOULD LIKE TO BE A 
COUNTESS ! 


MAYBE SHE WON’T GET HIM, AFTER ALL ! 

This was more than flesh and blood could bear. 
The Scotchman, filled with wrath, chafed impotently 
when he found there was no practicable way to 
punish the authors of the outrage. There was abso- 
lutely nothing he could do, short of dragging her 
name with his before the police courts, except to com- 


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83 


pose himself and try to forget the exquisite annoy- 
ance. 

Sybil, who saw no newspapers, suffered less than he. 
Her trial lay in the general assumption of her friends 
that her affair with Cameron must end in marriage. 
The redeeming circumstance about the whole situation 
was that Cameron himself now never mentioned that 
exigent word. He was u nicer ” than ever, Sybil owned 
to herself. If she could only be sure that he hated 
her, or at least preferred one of the many other 
girls he saw daily in the recurrent meetings of their 
set! But something told her that this was not the 
case. 

In the midst of this confusion of mind she did not 
forget that she had not seen Mr. Davenant since the 
afternoon when he had slipped away from her aunt’s 
musical party without saying farewell. The separa- 
tion was not quite his fault, since cards, left by him 
upon Mrs. Lewiston and Miss Gwynne, had been found 
upon two occasions, at a week’s interval, lying on the 
hall table. But Sybil met him nowhere. Mrs. Grant- 
ham had told her once that Davenant was tremen- 
dously busy just now in the Something-or-Other Trust 
case, and later on that he had come out of it with 
laurels. Sybil saw by this that he did not permit 
sentimental interest to interfere with the serious busi- 
ness of his life ; but she could not help wishing she 
had interfered so far as to effect another meeting. 
She missed the heart-throbs he had brought to her, 
the charm of his reverent homage. Once she thought, 
—then put it aside with a guilty blush,— had Ian 
Cameron been able to stir in her this emotion, there 


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would have been less demur in recognition by her of 
his fitness as a husband. 

In many respects Cameron suited and pleased her 
well. He understood her tastes, fancies, allusions to 
things and people previously known. He represented 
an existence that, as her days in America went on, she 
felt a longing again to blend with. She liked more 
and more to recall the images of restful English life ; 
its rich perfectness, its well-ordered privacy, its sim- 
plicity of habit during a greater part of the year, 
contrasted with the liberal gaiety of its London season, 
and many peeps into Continental centers of society. 
That life as a constancy would be a thing very unlike 
her nomadic journeyings with her mama, her presen- 
tations at “ half the courts of Europe,” her girlish tri- 
umphs in the cosmopolitan society of certain German 
spas. 

Cameron had once told her that, if she married him, 
although they would be only fairly well off, she would 
find his ancestral Scottish home a choicer possession, 
from an antiquarian’s point of view, than either of 
Lord Huntingtower’s dwellings, of which they would 
ultimately come into possession. He had given Sybil 
photographs of this historic haunt of his in the lovely 
Yale of Strathmore; and often, amid the rush of 
New- World life, she had looked at these pictures with 
a sort of tender longing. She was most tempted, 
perhaps, by the old north-country gardens, with their 
masses of flowers, their turf walks of soft green velvet, 
their pyramids of box, eagles of holly, and peacocks 
of yew keeping guard to-day as they did three hun- 
dred years ago. She had seen and loved so many such 


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85 


pleasances within the circle of the British Isles ! And 
these now offered to her were said, upon the authority 
of the Stanleys, to be among the loveliest and rarest 
in the land. 

One morning Sybil had taken out her photographs 
and was scanning them. From the exterior, with its 
mullioned windows and ivy-shrouded walls, to the 
vaulted halls and “ dining-parlor,” lined with old 
Spanish leathers — from the galleries full of family 
portraits, under which the American girl might walk 
as one of the line, to the great, quaint, shadowy, oak- 
paneled morning-room that had been Ian’s mother’s, 
and would be his wife’s — she passed in turn. Just 
then Sybil received a visit from her aunt. 

With a blush, she swept the pile of pictures to one 
side of her table, but not before Mrs. Lewiston had 
observed the nature of her preoccupation. 

“ Good gracious, child ! you need not mind my see- 
ing that you are taking that into consideration,” said 
the lady, in a clear, brisk voice. “ It is just what you 
ought to do, in fact. Things have got to such a pass 
now, you must come to some other definite decision.” 

“ I think not, Aunt Elizabeth,” faltered Sybil, red- 
dening to the roots of her hair, and looking ready to 
burst into tears. 

“ You can’t be supposed to know how the outside 
world is making busy with your affair j but St. Clair 
tells me you are the talk of the newspapers and clubs, 
and, unless your engagement is officially announced, 
either Captain Cameron will have to take himself off 
to Canada, or I shall have to go with you to Florida 
or Bermuda, or some of those tiresome places.” 


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Again the blushes dyed Sybil’s face. 

“It is through no fault of mine, Aunt Elizabeth, 
that you are subjected to these inconveniences. You 
know whether I have encouraged him to come here.” 

“ It would have been well enough, but for the press,” 
said the angry lady. “ You know Bermuda bores me, 
and Florida is so wretchedly far off.” 

“What do you wish me to do?” asked the girl, 
drooping her fair head submissively. 

“ I don’t know. I asked St. Clair to come in to din- 
ner to-night, and talk it over; and perhaps he will. 
It is his duty to advise us. But it is so hard to get 
him to speak ; all he said was, I ’ve no right to bind 
you by an agreement to live with me if you marry a 
British subject; he said it ’s uncommon rough on 
Cameron. And so, thinking it over, I ’ve come in to 
tell you I ’ll make this agreement : If you marry 
Cameron, I ’ll give you the same allowance I prom- 
ised all along, and either I ’ll take a house in London 
for the season, where you ’ll stop with me, or you ’ll 
both come over to Newport and stay until the autumn. 
Of course, when Annie James comes to live with me I 
will let you off. And St. Clair says I ought to give 
you the money outright that will bring in the income 
I promised you.” 

“ St. Clair has always been good to me,” said Sybil, 
touched by this unexpected kindness. 

“ Yes ; he likes you ; he says you make no demands 
upon him. Poor boy ! but for his wretched health, he 
might marry himself, and— Sybil, you know I am no 
friend to marriage for women; but, if it ’s got to be, I 
think Cameron is the best for you. If my sister had 


GOOD AMERICANS 


87 


lived up to the traditions of our family in New York, 
—if she had, like myself, stood before society as a 
type of the old aristocracy of our land,— things might 
have been different. But you are totally unfit for life 
over here. You know nothing, and care less, for our 
national history. Why, I believe you have hardly cut 
the leaves of those volumes I took such pains to select 
for your shelves.” 

“I have so little time to read, aunt,” replied the 
recreant, with a guilty glance at a pair of John Fiske’s 
delightful volumes upon the American Revolution, 
lying on the table, with a silver book-mark very near 
page 1 of Volume I. 

“Of course— and little inclination. But, as I said, 
Cameron is the best husband for you. These young 
fellows you dance with have neither money to support 
wives, nor wish to assume the responsibility. Mr. 
Mortimer—” 

“ Don’t speak of him ! ” cried the girl. 

“It would be an excellent position. But he is, of 
all people in town, essentially an American. His 
tastes and yours would never fit. I doubt if he would 
take time to run over to Europe once in two years. 
If you accepted him, you ’d have to settle down to 
nothing but New York.” 

“ Oh, Aunt Elizabeth,” cried Sybil, throwing her 
arms wearily into the air, “ if you knew how hard this 
is for me to bear ! ” 

« There are times in every woman’s life, my dear, 
when she must consent to look things in the face ; and 
this is yours. For my part, I can’t think what has 
become of our marriageable men. In our day — your 


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poor mother’s and mine— there were so many more 
than now. St. Clair says it ’s because the girls expect 
so much; the men make up their minds not to try. 
He says, too, the girls are all aiming for such high 
game, they let ordinary chances slip. That is the way 
men talk among themselves. In this age men are so 
horrid about women.” 

“ Everything is horrid ! ” exclaimed Sybil, her lip 
trembling. 

“ Well, child, since it is evident you are in an obsti- 
nate mood, I ’ll say no more for the present, except 
that I wish to mention Britton having brought to me 
several cards, left recently, of that Mr. Davenant you 
met at Katrina Grantham’s. Now I don’t deny the 
Granthams’ good birth and antecedents, but I am told 
they receive— ahem ! — very queer people. I asked St. 
Clair about Mr. Davenant, and he said he never heard 
of the fellow in any of his clubs. I think it is very 
forward of him to call here so often, upon such slight 
acquaintance. He is probably a nobody who wants to 
get in with established families.” 

“ Ask Mr. Carnifex what he thinks of Mr. Davenant,” 
answered the girl, with spirit. “Ask anybody who 
knows something outside of our little narrow circle.” 

“You have been seeing that young man?” quickly 
countered Mrs. Lewiston. 

“ Only where I have told you, except once, when he 
joined me on the street for a few minutes’ walk. But 
there is no reason why I should not see him, Aunt 
Elizabeth. He is every whit as good as the best we 
know. He is more clever and learned than any one 
we know.” 


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89 


“ I have it, on good authority, that the Granthams’ 
friends are queer,” insisted Mrs. Lewiston, obstinately 
closing her lips ; “ and whatever this— er— person- 
may be, St. Clair has never heard of him in any of the 
clubs.” 

“ He belongs to the Academical, for one,” said Sybil, 
blushing at her own weakness. 

“ Eh ! St. Clair does not belong to the Academical,” 
answered Mrs. Lewiston, with finality. u In any case, 
Sybil, I do not care to have Mr. Davenant coming to 
my house. If you are to marry Cameron, you cannot 
receive another person who has either fallen in love 
with you upon ridiculously short acquaintance, or is 
using you to push himself into society. I may as well 
tell you that he called again yesterday ; but as I had 
given Britton orders to say the ladies were not at 
home, the matter ended with two cards. Now, child, 
think over what I have said ; take, if you like, a week 
to consider it. If you are not going to have Cameron, 
tell me, and we will leave town for somewhere— dear 
knows where. They tell me people under our circum- 
stances go a great deal now to the Virginia Springs.” 

u Do you mean people who are hounded by the gos- 
sip of newspapers and the opinion of those they don’t 
respect ? ” said Sybil, hotly. 

But the expression of her aunt’s face, set in pride of 
her own opinion— the knowledge of her ideas, hide- 
bound in prejudice— stopped further outburst upon 
the girl’s part. She curbed herself so far as to kiss 
her Aunt Elizabeth upon a brow like polished granite, 
and to show her a new ball-dress that had just come 
home for Mrs. Stanley’s “ little dance” on the morrow. 


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That evening, at the opera, she saw Davenant in the 
stalls, alone. He looked grave and care-worn, and 
Sybil's heart— her vagrant heart of youth— went out 
in joy at sight of him, in sympathy with the cloud 
upon his face. She was sitting in the box of Mrs. 
Arden, whom Davenant did not know, and feared he 
would not understand that he was free to call on her. 
In addition, Captain Cameron was of their party, and 
several times the lorgnons of the house had veered 
around to center upon the group. 

“ What it is to be the chaperon of the 1 Cynthia of 
the minute ' ! 77 said Mrs. Arden to Cameron. “ Do you 
know, although you may n't believe me, I should n't 
want one of my girls to have the belleship of Sybil 
Gwynne. How in the world is a girl who has tasted 
it ever going to do without it in her after life f " 

“I can think of but one remedy,” said he, smiling 
— “ another hemisphere. Fortunately, Miss Gwynne 
has a balance and a sweetness of temper that enable 
her to keep unspoiled.” 

“You don't spoil women in your part, certainly,” 
said the lively widow. “ When I remember the way 
nice women stand around, and follow after, and let 
themselves be dictated to by husbands and lovers, and 
even by brothers, in England ! ” 

“ Yet they seem satisfied with us,” rejoined the cap- 
tain, carelessly. He had had so much of international 
discussion. Just now his whole thoughts were con- 
centrated in the honest hope to win and carry away 
from these hothouse surroundings the girl he had loved 
for years. Once bring her to accept him for a hus- 
band, it would be an easy matter to accomplish the 


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91 


reasonable happiness of their two lives. But some- 
thing had now entered into her life and thoughts that 
Cameron could not understand. She was no longer 
the simple, transparent being who had refused to 
marry him because she had never known love. Her 
secret, if she had one, eluded him. He was tempted 
to think this another phase of that infinite complexity, 
womanhood. 

To-night, Cameron, feeling that matters were com- 
ing to a crisis, had, while sitting by her at dinner, 
infused into his talk with her a more proprietary 
warmth than he had ventured on before. She had 
been agitated, had shrunk away, but had not entirely 
turned from him her countenance. During the even- 
ing he did not once sit in the chair behind hers, or 
seem to look at her j but the cool captain had his eyes 
fully open to what was going on. He had seen her 
face light suddenly as she identified some one in the 
stalls, to whom she had bowed with a gracious but shy 
smile. Shortly after, he had observed the arrival of a 
new caller, a tall, dark, forceful man of striking indi- 
viduality, who, duly named to Mrs. Arden as Mr. Dave- 
nant, had then fallen into close conversation with Miss 
Gwynne. Cameron, divining what he did not desire to 
think, with a fine instinct arose and went out of the box. 

“ It has been so long since I have seen you,” said the 
girl to Davenant, trying to appear unconcerned, but 
succeeding rather ill. 

“Yet I have called repeatedly. Is it possible you 
did not get my cards 1 ” 

“New York is too big,” she said evasively. “We 
are too busy, too selfish, too bent on our own devices, 


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too scattered. Nobody is 1 at home ’ now, unless to a 
raft of peopled 

“A man can’t keep up going forever and never 
getting in.” 

“If we were in London in the season, and could 
stray out into Hyde Park and sit upon penny chairs 
everything would come to us ; but here one never runs 
upon any one outdoors where it ’s possible to stop and 
talk without blocking up the street.” 

“ Do your 1 people ’ not walk ? ” he asked, eagerness 
in his gaze. “ W ould you come with me to our park ? ” 

“From the Marble Arch to the Obelisk, and then 
1 take a walk/ ” she said, laughing. “ What a mag- 
nificent distance you are laying out ! ” 

“ Then you hold out to me no hope?” he replied in 
an impassioned undertone. “ I may not call ; we may 
never meet. What remains for me ? ” 

Sybil would have given anything in reason to control 
her heart-throbs at that moment. Her voice, shaking 
as she tried to answer him lightly, played her false. 

“ I will walk with you,” she said rapidly. “ I think 
you would not find it pleasant to call for me at my 
aunt’s house. I shall be leaving Mrs. Stanley’s to- 
morrow at four o’clock. If you are there, we may 
stroll down the Avenue together.” 

“ Mrs. Stanley hardly knew me when I bowed just 
now,” he said, bewildered ; “ but if you say so, I shall 
be there.” 

Sybil, who had never before made an arrangement 
of this unconventional nature, had no sooner seen him 
go than she would have recalled it. Her concession 
could surprise no one more than it had herself. 


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93 


“ That is a man I have often wanted to see,” said 
Mrs. Arden, leaning over to Sybil. “ I understand 
he is 1 booked 7 to marry Agatha Carnifex 

“ I had not heard of it / 7 murmured Sybil, faintly. 

“ I forget who told me. One hears so many things. 
But it is certainly suitable ; don’t you think so ? 77 

“ I suppose so . 77 

“They are just the couple to found a New York 
household of the higher substantial sort— heads of the 
community, and all that. Agatha will go on presid- 
ing over committees, and his name will be in every 
list of eminent citizens. They say Mr. Carnifex is 
enchanted with his future son-in-law . 77 

“ When did this happen ? Are you sure ? Are they 
old enough acquaintances ? 77 asked Sybil, confused and 
wretched. 

“ For the life of me, I can’t remember. I wonder if 
it came from Katrina Grantham, whose 1 swan 7 he is ? 
Perhaps ; but I don’t know, really . 77 

A new batch of callers distracted them. The shock 
of what she had heard nerved Sybil to sit upright, to 
talk and laugh with unusual animation. In no other 
way could she cover the blank dismay of her feelings. 

In the lobby Davenant came upon the ever-cheerful 
Mr. Hamilton Ainslie. 

“ Saw you in there a moment since , 77 said Ainslie, 
indicating vaguely Mrs. Arden’s box. “ I fancy you 
know that all the rest of us have pretty much thrown 
up the sponge. Old Mortimer has gone West in a 
special. Our ancient playfellow, Mrs. Stanley, thinks 
the engagement will be out shortly . 77 

“ What engagement ? 77 asked Davenant, brusquely. 


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“Miss Gwynne’s with Cameron. He is a deuced 
good fellow, let me tell you. He will never bore her • 
he will treat her well. The place he gives her will fit 
like a glove. The more I ’ve thought it out, the better 
I ’m satisfied she won’t do over here. With every wish 
to adapt herself, she ’s not adaptable. She can’t go 
on in her present line forever, don’t you know. And 
after that— what? I confess I can’t see.” 

“You believe she wishes to marry him?” 

“ I believe she will marry him. I don’t see who ’s 
to prevent it. I can’t, much as I ’d like to. Must you 
go? G-ood-by. We ’ll have a spin together some of 
the fine spring days.” 

Davenant, from his seat in the parquet, gave one 
more glance into Mrs. Arden’s box. He saw Sybil in 
conversation with Cameron, whose manner was ner- 
vous, his quiet face flushed with excitement. Many 
others noticed this little episode. It was the first time 1 
any one could say he or she had seen Miss Gwynne 
show her suitor such public favor. 

The next day Davenant received a note from Sybil 
asking him to excuse her from filling the engagement 
to walk, that she felt she had made too hastily. 

And the next week it was announced by the papers 
that Miss Gwynne had gone with her aunt, Mrs. Lew- 
iston, to the Virginia Springs. Captain Cameron 
being still seen in his usual haunts about town, the 
surmise was that on their return the time for the 
nuptials would be given to the world. By and by, 
when Cameron departed to make his long-deferred visit 
to the Canadian provinces, the gossips were thrown 
off the scent ; and for a time they said nothing at all. 


VI 



URINGr the months following the crash 
of Davenant’s air-castle he formed the 
habit of going frequently to visit Mr. 
and Miss Carnifex. His need of re- 
fined and sympathetic companionship 
had now become urgent. There was 
no one living of whom he would have made a confi- 
dant. To have loved Sybil was a glory, to have lost 
her a consequence to be expected by common sense. 
So brief, so passionate a dream might seem to others 
incredible j to him it was a reality that could not pass. 
In any case, he was not one to wear his heart upon 
his sleeve for even a friend’s investigation. 

But he craved friends, and in the Carnifexes found, 
if not healing, comfort for his wounds. That amiable 
old worldling, Mr. Carnifex, proved to be a mine of 
information, philosophy, and quaint comment con- 
cerning the community and people of New York. 
Nothing that had occurred here in business or society 
for the last fifty years had escaped his notice or passed 
out of his tenacious memory. He had lived to see the 
great social-equality theory of democracy fall quite to 
pieces at the end of the first century in the leading 
95 


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city of the republic, to see new classes formed, new 
grades and distinctions assert themselves, with no- 
body to say them nay. His old pleasant life among 
his compeers and associates was gone. Poor Mr. 
Carnifex, after roving about among the houses of his 
friends and at his club, would often come back to his 
library, and drop down into his chair, determined to 
rove no more. Under these conditions, the society of 
Davenant was a boon, and to Davenant he attached 
himself with almost pathetic devotion. 

With Agatha, Davenant advanced more slowly along 
the path of mutual confidence and esteem 5 but theirs 
was growing to be as good an example of friendship 
between the sexes as this troublous world can offer. 

Ainslie, whom he encountered occasionally at the 
Carnifexes’, was the only one who seemed to have dis- 
cerned Davenant’s feeling for Sybil. Since Ainslie 
was himself occupied in the task of trying to forget 
her, he gave no hint of his suspicions. What Agatha 
knew about either man’s feelings, nobody knew. She 
was the rare woman who keeps impressions to herself. 

One Sunday, after riding all the morning through 
the tender greens of a late- April landscape, Davenant 
dropped in to luncheon with the Granthams, whom he 
found in the throes of deciding upon their summer 
plans. 

“Help me, Davenant,” said Mowbray Grantham, 
pausing in the act of carving a pair of fowls. “ These 
womenkind of mine, my wife and Katty, are pressing 
for a vote from me which I know, and they know, will 
carry no possible weight. We are, in imagination, 
making the circuit of the country. I go to bed in one 


GOOD AMERICANS 


97 


rural resort, get up in another, go down-town believ- 
ing myself established for the summer at a third. By 
dinner-time they have found an entirely new place, 
where— but that I know we shall move out of it, bag 
and baggage, in a day or two— I might be resigned to 
settle down and thank God for a place of rest.” 

“The whole trouble,” began Mrs. Grantham, pa- 
tiently waiting till her lord had said his say, “ lies in 
the way rich people have spoiled the nice places for 
those of moderate means. By the time I bring my 

girl and boys home from a summer at , or , 

or , they are set up with ideas of expenditure per- 

fectly ruinous to a professional income.” 

“ That is very virtuous, O mother in Israel,” quoth 
her husband ; “ but where is she who desires her young 
to be deprived of the advantages and enjoyments of 
their set ? In my day—” 

“Papa, you know I do not allow you to have had 
a 1 day * yet,” cried his saucy Katty, with an admiring 
glance at him. 

“ In my day,” went on Grantham, imperturbably, 
“we young people got our pleasures without price. 
We roamed, shot, fished, and played in the free open. 
Now all joys must be paid for at the highest market 
rates. If your boy wheels, his machine must be one 
of the current year. If he golfs, there are subscrip- 
tions and an outfit of the best. If he fishes or shoots 
—I cease to contemplate the cost of those amusements ! 
And then, girls—” 

“Certainly a girl must have things not necessary 
for a boy. But I am sure our children are all per- 
fectly reasonable, poor dears,” mused Mrs. Grantham. 

7 


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“If it were not for tlie effort of Katty’s coining 
out—” 

“Mummy dear,” cried Katty, buoyantly, “if my 
coming out is going to plunge the family into such 
trouble, I think I ’d rather stay in. Anyhow, the boys 
and I had a thousand times rather go back to the farm, 
and have some fun, than to one of those prim, dress- 
up-and-visity places.” 

“You are lucky enough to possess a family home- 
stead, are n’t you ? ” asked the visitor of his hostess. 

Mrs. Grantham’s eyes, seeking her husband’s, then 
Katty’s, assumed a pensive and apologetic expression. 

“We had determined to try to find a tenant for 
Hillcote this year,” she said, hesitating. 

“ The truth is, Davenant,” supplemented Grantham, 
“my ancestral domain, in a stony and unproductive 
region of western Massachusetts, has cost me so much 
money to ‘restore’ it according to my wife’s ideas—” 

“ What about your experiments in agriculture ? ” in- 
terrupted Katrina, softly. 

“ — we can hardly afford to live there,” pursued Mr. 
J ustice Grantham. “ Last year we got it off our hands 
to an estimable family, who at once went to Europe, 
leaving their horses, servants, an invalid daughter, a 
trained nurse, and a governess in possession.” 

“ I wish you could have seen my chintz covers in 
the drawing-room afterward,” interpolated the hostess, 
“and two bedrooms that have to be painted and 
papered new.” 

“ But we must own that our tenants paid their way,” 
said Grantham. “ I am going to tell you also, Dave- 
nant, that it is n’t the expensiveness of Hillcote that 


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99 


is the drawback, so much as the remoteness. Our 
very first season there, my wife and daughter and one 
son fancied they must have a month at the seaside for 
change—” 

“ Oh, oh ! ” cried Mrs. Grantham and Katty in con- 
cert, “ you know it was really measles, and the doctor 
ordered us to go.” 

“ Let me give Davenant my experience as a beacon- 
light to young men intending matrimony. I inherited 
that farm from my grandfather, and had a sentiment 
for it that need not be explained. I should have liked 
to go back there for my summer vacation, and live the 
old life just as it was. But the occasion offered too 
good an opportunity to my decorative wife not to be 
improved. New-Yorkers then were in the full flush 
of restoring old houses in new-old fashion. My wife 
had a nest-egg of a few thousands she wanted to put 
into our ‘ summer home.’ We committed ourselves to 
the mercy of a young architect who was said to have 
a ‘strong feeling’ for the revival of early American 
art in house-building. After he had done with us we 
had a strong feeling of empty American pockets. The 
old house had taken on a fine style and complexion. 
Eccentricities my good Puritan forebears had never 
dreamed of cropped out everywhere. But my wife 
said it was ‘too beautiful for anything’; and I sup- 
pose she knew. All of one winter she spent in ran- 
sacking curiosity-shops for furniture. She would send 
home dejected specimens of second-hand chairs, sofas, 
and four-post beds, brasses, mirrors, and the like. She 
even bought a worsted fire-screen that she said ‘ ought 
to have been ’ worked by my Aunt Pamela. I am not 


100 


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sure she did not purchase an imaginary portrait of 
my Aunt Pamela. For the hall we had English hunt- 
scenes, for the dining-room black old engravings that 
would frighten you. But Mrs. Grantham is always 
essentially correct—” 

“ Please, papa,” cried Katty, “ let me interrupt, to 
tell Mr. Davenant that Hillcote is now the prettiest 
old model farm-house in Massachusetts. And may I 
tell him, too, about your vegetable-garden— how much 
the peas cost apiece by the time we got them on the 
table— and the strawberries?” 

“ My father does his farming by long-distance tele- 
phone from his chambers,” said one of the school-boys, 
with a mischievous look. 

“How about those hogs, papa?” added the other 
lad, evidently touching some family joke. “ Oh, don’t 
let ’s talk about going anywhere but to Hillcote ! ” he 
burst out fervently. 

“ Agreed ! ” said Katty. 

“ Agreed ! ” cried the older boy. 

“ Carried ! ” exclaimed the girl, clapping her hands. 
“ Mummy darling, if you knew how I hate dancing 
and prancing and going to dinners in summer-time, 
you ’d never take me to Newport or Lenox or Bar 
Harbor. Keep all the money you ’d have spent on 
our finery, and let us have the farm.” 

“ And be a ruined parent at the end of the season,” 
said Grantham ; but it was easy to see that his sym- 
pathies were with his young ones. 

“You see, Mr. Davenant, how our juveniles rule us,” 
observed Katrina, as, upon Peter’s declining a cigar 
with his host, she returned with him to her drawing- 


GOOD AMERICANS 


101 


room. “ I don’t donbt they will end by having their 
own way. And, should we go to Hillcote, you must 
promise to make us a visit there. The only neighbors 
of any consequence we have are the Stanleys, who 
own a fine house built on a great wide-spreading es- 
tate a few miles distant, where they keep up a stock- 
farm, but rarely go. Not once since we fitted up our 
farm-house has she been there. Etta goes abroad 
every spring, returns to Newport in July, and spends 
the autumn at Lenox or elsewhere. From year’s end 
to year’s end, she is never out of harness for the gay 
world.” 

“No wonder your charming little daughter avoids 
such an example,” said Davenant. “You are good to 
let me have a glimpse of home life and natural talk in 
this reign of artificiality.” 

“ It is all natural talk in our house,” said she, smil- 
ing with a tender thought of her brood. “With all 
the abuse we Americans have to stand, I claim for us 
average people an intimacy of domestic life, a unity of 
interest with our children, that you see in few other 
countries. My boys and my girl are the best part of 
my existence, and their habit of confidence sweetens 
the bitter drops of the daily cup.” 

“You must have few of those,” put in Davenant, 
with a half-sigh. 

“Who has n’t some?” she returned. “What two 
wedded lives, with their outgrowths, ever ran an even, 
unbroken course? A man thinks when he gets the 
woman he loves, and a girl thinks when she gives 
herself, that they will be always superior to petty 
differences— that they will set a pace for others to keep 


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up with. Ah me ! This world is nothing but going 
on from day to day, living as best one can, hoping, 
striving, falling, and scrambling up again. When you 
marry, pray for adaptability to your other half ; pray 
also to recognize your limitations, and to fit yourself 
to them.” 

“ I am not likely to formulate any petitions of the 
kind,” he said with an attempt to smile. 

“ Some day ! ” she answered in a lighter vein. 

Katrina had heard of his frequenting the Carnifex 
establishment. She was careful not to say anything 
direct upon this theme, but in her heart determined, 
if his visit to Hillcote did come off, she would somehow 
afford him an opportunity to make better acquain- 
tance with Agatha. 

“And, speaking of Mrs. Stanley,” went on Mrs. 
Grantham, “she is just about sailing for the other 
side, to do her usual spring shopping in Paris. Miss 
Gwynne goes with her— why, this is Sunday ! They 
sailed yesterday.” 

Not a muscle betrayed Daven ant’s feeling. 

“ Sybil Gwynne has been very nice in calling upon 
me two or three times lately ; but I ’ve always missed 
her. When she came back with her aunt from Vir- 
ginia, that good-for-nothing son of Mrs. Lewiston’s 
was taken ill in his mother’s house, and Sybil was the 
only person he would allow to sit by him in his con- 
valescence. His mother, dear knows, would make 
any invalid wretched by her presence. Sybil was very 
sweet and unselfish, but when he recovered she began 
running down herself ; so Etta Stanley persuaded Mrs. 
Lewiston to let Sybil go abroad with her. Of course 


GOOD AMERICANS 


103 


people say Miss Gwynne’s pale looks and general ab- 
straction are due to her approaching marriage with 
Captain Cameron. That is such a common feature of 
engagements ! But no one knows whether she is to 
marry him or not. There has been no announcement. 
The shopping business in Paris is confirmatory. If it 
is true, there goes another one of our choice maidens 
to swell the ranks of the British aristocracy ! It is 
astonishing what a lot of them we have lost. And it ’s 
quite absurd to say their matches have not turned out 
well. There are as many prizes and as many blanks 
in the marriage lottery over there as in ours. Sybil 
Gwynne, for instance, will be happier than she could 
have been with anybody in New York ” 

“ Upon what do you base your assertion ? ” 
u Chiefly the parrot-cry of her set : 1 Who is there 
for her to marry here ? ’ Whatever she was intended 
for by her Maker, shaping and training have not fitted 
her to be the helpmate of a good American.” 

The first day out at sea ! Sybil quitted the deck state- 
room wherein her friend Etta reclined upon a broad 
bed, covered by her own luxurious duvet, attended by 
an effusive maid and the cunning stewardess, and 
looking so yellow and ghastly it was as well Mr. Stan- 
ley kept himself severely within the smoking-room, 
where he usually played poker from shore to shore of 
the Atlantic. Leaning over the rail, the girl looked 
westward. Ainslie, who had come down to the dock 
to see her off at the last minute, had casually told her 
that he ’d been to the theater the night before with 
the Carnifexes, and it was all rubbish to suppose 


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Agatha meant to marry Peter Davenant. Agatha had, 
in fact, as much as told him of her persistent inten- 
tion to remain unwed. 

“ I once fancied he was hard hit by you,” the young 
fellow had added, in the midst of a mob of swarming, 
struggling women carrying bouquets, who had come 
on board to see the departure of their idol, the great 
pianist. 

There had stood the artist, with his silk hat set on 
the back of his leonine locks, with his bare throat and 
turn-down collar, with his pale, intellectual face wear- 
ing an expression of abject boredom. Here had 
surged the women. Above the clack of tongues, the 
babel of noise from dock and shipboard, the sonorous 
clashing of the band, the bell warning loiterers to be 
off had sounded for the last time. 

“ And you decided he is too big and wise a man to 
waste himself upon an idle trifler of my kind ? ” Sybil 
had answered, a bitter note in her voice. 

“ I at least am not,” had answered Ainslie, with a 
look of unwonted gravity. u Bon voyage ! This com- 
ing down to the ships that are sailing for the other 
side is one of the severest tests of my friendship. If 
I always want to go on them, fancy how I feel now ! ” 

“ Some President will have to send you out as sec- 
retary of an embassy.” 

“ That would undo all these years of striving. No, 
no ! Let me alone, and in the course of time I may 
come out a good American.” 

“ Do go ; you will get left,” Sybil had urged. 

11 Then good-by, once more. The chief steward will 
keep you supplied with white violets till about Queens- 


GOOD AMERICANS 


105 


town ; they are in his ice-box, and I hope won’t prove 
messy. Think of me sometimes.” 

His hand clasped hers. The gaze of his clear blue 
eyes wore a look of lover’s longing. 

“ There is no hope for me— ever ?” he asked in a 
thick whisper. 

“ No, no. Good-by, good-by ! ” Sybil had answered 
—in her agitation lest he should be left putting her 
gloved hand against his breast to press him from the 
ship. 

To-day she went over again what Ainslie had told 
her. The relief of knowing that Davenant was free 
filled her with joy. She almost forgot to sympathize 
with poor, faithful, handsome Ainslie ; and for a time 
she quite forgot Ian Cameron, to whom she had prom- 
ised to give a final answer on arriving at their hotel 
in Paris. 

This exuberance went with her across the ocean, 
that, after two boisterous days, settled down into 
lamblike gentleness. 

Nearing the Irish coast, they held aboard the usual 
concert, this time to be made forever memorable to 
its patrons. The ship’s company gathered like bees in 
the saloon. The piano, tuned for the occasion, was to 
be touched by the famous magician. It was almost 
too good to be true ! 

A little while and he took his seat. There was 
breathless silence while he played on, on, without 
break except to change the melody. No matter what 
the theme, his fingers gave it harmony divine, and 
fitted it to the magic of the hour. Afloat on the wide 
ocean, the sound of the screws scarcely heard in the 


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quiet sea that pulsed against the great ship’s sides— 
an hour of enchantment, of rest, of tender reverie. 

When Sybil laid her down that night she had 
reached the conclusion that was to color all her life. 
In vain had poor Ainslie’s violets wasted their sweet- 
ness in a frozen atmosphere. 


VII 



IDSUMMER in the Berkshire hill-coun- 
try ! Shadows of mountain and forest 
lie for a moment upon greenest earth, 
and at the shifting of a cloud-screen 
vanish. At a lull in the west wind 
intense heat is exhaled upon the at- 
mosphere ; the air of the pine woods smites the face 
like a blast from a furnace ; then a burst of invigorat- 
ing wind comes to revive fainting humanity. In an- 
swer to it, the elm-trees toss and whisper to the pines j 
the birches, white ladies of the woods, gossip with the 
tasseled chestnuts. The red bell-lilies in the oat-fields 
tinkle above a sea of rippled, glossy verdure. In the 
tall meadow-grasses, daisies, rudbeckias, vetch, and 
purple clover bend and intermingle. To greet the 
perfect day, nature sends forth all the incense in her 
caskets. 


Following a forest road under an awning formed of 
chestnuts, hemlocks, flowering linden, hickories, beech- 
boughs crusted with tiny nuts, and garlands of wild 
grape, jogged a basket-phaeton, leisurely driven by a 
girl, behind whom was perched a youthful groom in 
undress livery of cords. The continuity of dense shade 
107 



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during a mile or two was grateful alike to the fat 
pony, to the lazy little groom, and to the graceful 
charioteer. Now listening to the liquid notes of the 
wood-robins, now plunging her eye into the bracken 
and maidenhair that grew in masses upon the road- 
side, or else stopping when the pony wished to dip his 
nose into a trough of ice-cold water fed by a moss- 
grown conduit from the hills above, the girl dawdled 
away a pleasant hour. When she came out of the 
lovely wood into a country road bordered with low 
stone walls overgrown by greenery, the view opened 
nobly before her. Hills upon hills, mountains be- 
yond, a valley with a winding river, here and there a 
farm-house overtopped in size by its red barn, on the 
steep hillsides pastures with short herbage, scattered 
rocks, wild brier-roses, and sweet-fern, the odor of 
which was trodden out by the feet of grazing sheep 
and cattle. More daisies in white sheets, rumpled by 
the breeze; more oat-fields, yellowish red with the 
lovely mottled bells that steal away their substance. 
A bit of New England, this— placid, verdant, soothing 
to eye and spirit. As good as old England, thought 
the looker-on, save for the lack of habitations blended 
by age with their surroundings. And far away, in a 
hollow to the left, below a slope of shining Indian 
corn, she saw the sparkle of a sapphire lake. 

u Would that be Pocasset?” the lady asked of her 
attendant, extending her whip in the direction of this 
open eye of the landscape. 

“ Beg pard’n, miss, but I ’m sure I could n’t say,” 
answered the prim little buttony personage. 

The absurdity of her appeal to this imported speci- 


GOOD AMERICANS 


109 


men struck the questioner, and she laughed aloud. A 
countryman in a checked shirt, and carrying a scythe, 
was met at this moment. As he stopped naively to 
enjoy the spectacle of her equipage, she repeated the 
inquiry. 

“ No, marm j it ain’t,” he said promptly. “ To git to 
Pocasset, you ’ve got to turn into the next piece of 
woods to yer right. There ’s a mighty sight of ponds 
hereabouts, an’ all on ’em purty.” 

“ Thank you,” said she, feeling in a tiny purse of 
silver network at her girdle for a small coin to bestow 
upon him. To her confusion, he colored to the ears, 
and with a grunt of refusal of the dole, passed slouch- 
ing on his way. 

“ I forget where I am,” she said to herself, blushing 
also. “ I hope I did not irremediably wound the feel- 
ings of that free-born republican. But I am sure he 
would not hesitate to drive a sharp bargain with me 
in the way of trade.” 

The pony, reminded by a flick of the whip, resumed 
his easy gait. The groom, deciding that there was as 
little exertion in this method of earning his wages as 
another, sprang to his perch. A mile farther, and the 
turn of the road appeared, leading into a wood of 
great pines, oaks, and towering hemlocks. 

In the heart of these shadowy depths lay a pool of 
azure tint and considerable length and breadth. The 
road ended beside a bank sloping down to a sheet of 
water in a noble grove, cleared of undergrowth, and 
verdant with moss and bracken. So remote the spot, 
it was a genuine surprise to the lady of the chariot to 
espy near the edge of this pond a gipsy fire, over 


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which a kettle was boiling. Under the trees rugs were 
spread around a hamper suggestive of good fare. A 
few books had been left by their readers upon the rugs 
and roots of trees. At a little distance, a smart buck- 
board stood detached from horses tied at a rack ; and 
directly from under the steep bank glided a punt filled 
with wild flowers, fishing-tackle, and people in holiday 
attire. 

“ What a surprise ! ” called a woman’s voice. “ We 
had no idea you had come up.” 

“ Nor I that you were here.” 

So saying, Sybil Gwynne threw the reins to her 
groom, and springing from the phaeton, ran down the 
bank to greet her friends. She had known, of course, 
of the Granthams’ residence in this neighborhood, but 
had not counted upon seeing them at this spot, or so 
soon. 

“We came up yesterday,” she added. “Etta has a 
headache from the heat ; the men are all absorbed with 
the horses ; and so I begged for this trap to explore the 
country-side.” 

“Then pray send the groom home with it, and 
stop with us for luncheon,” said Mrs. Grantham, who, 
in her crisp shirt and skirt and shade-hat, looked 
young and summer-like. 

The other voyagers were Mowbray Grantham, 
wearing the shocking old coat and trousers he called 
his “ fishing-suit,” with a straw hat purchased in the 
nearest village shop 5 one of his sons, in similar attire ; 
Katty, a picture of jaunty prettiness; and Agatha 
Carnifex. 

“ I suppose if you did n’t let Etta know your where- 


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111 


abouts she would be alarmed,” went on Katrina. 
“ Do stay. We can just as well leave you there on our 
return.” 

The others chiming in, Sybil let herself be persuaded, 
and the little groom was accordingly dismissed. 

“We were just coming ashore to prepare for lunch- 
eon,” said Mrs. Grantham. “ This is our own grove, 
and to spend the day here is one of our favorite hot- 
day performances. Lake Pocasset, although in the 
pine woods, is mysteriously cool. How nice it will be 
to sit under the trees and let you tell us rustics of 
your grand doings in the world beyond the sea ! ” 
“We arrived in town day before yesterday,” an- 
swered Sybil, “ and followed Jack’s fancy to come here 
from the steamer. I am to join my aunt at Newport 
at the end of the week. How pretty this is ! What 
an odd greenish light ! It is a nook of sweet repose 
after the glare of the open road. And how particu- 
larly nice,” she added, turning to Agatha, “ that I have 
found you with Mrs. Grantham ! ” 

“It is nice to be here,” answered Miss Carnifex. 
“ Our life at Hillcote is delightful. Katty and her 
brothers and I form a band of lawless vagabonds, 
determined to get everything that outdoor life can 
give us, at any expense of looks.” 

“Now for work,” said Mrs. Grantham, briskly. 
“ We will lay the cloth first, and unpack the cold 
meat and salads. I shall trust no one with the coffee, 
and my husband will care for that wine-cellar of his in 
the hollow of a tree. I think, Jim,” she said to her boy, 
“ you may as well not attempt to broil our fish till you 
see whether the canoeists bring in something better.” 


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u Mr. Davenant was lying on his back in the bottom, 
looking up into the sky,” said Jim, with decision ; “ and 
Bob can’t catch anything to save him. I vote to cook 
what fish we have, and not to depend upon those 
loafers.” 

“ Mr. Davenant ! ” said the last comer. 

“Yes; he is with us for a much-needed vacation,” 
answered Katrina. “ There, Jim, is a beautiful bed of 
hickory embers on the stones. Jim is an old woods- 
man, Miss Gwynne, as you will say when you taste 
his broiled bass. My boys had a camp here for a 
month one summer, and cooked for themselves all that 
we did not fetch them from home when we drove over 
to see whether they were dying of starvation.” 

Mowbray Grantham, who took his ease beside Sybil 
while the others worked, had leisure to observe the 
sudden vivid illumination of her beautiful fair face. 

His wife’s invitation to her to join them had not 
been seconded by him with much zeal. He had always 
looked upon Sybil Gwynne as a Parisian version of 
Undine. Now he detected in her expression some- 
thing that lent to it human charm. In her simple 
morning frock of blue-and- white-striped cotton, with 
a sailor-hat of white straw, and a knot of sweet-peas 
in her white belt, she looked like a charming school- 
girl, glad yet shy. “After all,” he reflected, “who 
shall say that a pretty woman is not a good thing to 
look at, anywhere ? ” 

A canoe, propelled in leisurely fashion by Bob 
Grantham, and containing a recumbent figure in flan- 
nels with his hat over his eyes, now came in sight 
around the bank. A shout from Jim to his brother, 


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summoning him to help in cookery, aroused the 
lounger, who, pulling himself up, looked about him in 
contrition. 

“Are we here?” he said. “Bob, you rascal, you 
betrayed me ! I had no idea we were at the landing- 
place.” 

“ Too hot for apologies— too hot for anything,” 
quoth the recreant, steering the craft skilfully inshore. 

Another moment, and Davenant stood in blank as- 
tonishment in Sybil’s presence. The drowsy look, 
passing from his eyes, was succeeded by one of bril- 
liant welcome. Whence she had come he asked not, 
but took her hand in his, and looked into her face as 
if he could never have enough of it ; then, remember- 
ing the presence of outsiders,— although these were 
busy with hospitable cares,— stood back, and curbed 
his fervor. 

Constraining himself to speak instead of shouting 
for joy, he asked her the usual questions about her 
arrival in the country, and told her, in return, that 
having himself come up the day before yesterday to 
be Mrs. Grantham’s guest, for two days only, it was 
his wish to remain at Hillcote for a week. 

“We shall be quite near you, then,” said Sybil, art- 
lessly. “ Perhaps we ’ll be meeting every day ” 

Davenant, not trusting himself to discuss this con- 
tingency, now yielded to a call to luncheon, that, 
spread on a cloth upon the ground, afforded dainties 
perfected for such occasions by long experience. The 
broiled bass, so recently transferred from the “ glassy, 
cool, translucent wave,” were praised and enjoyed in 
a way to reward the two cooks for the heat of their 


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endeavor. The claret, the black coffee served after- 
ward, all details, carefully sustained the general pitch 
of excellence. 

When they had finished, Mr. Grantham retired to 
lounge upon a Highland plaid stretched over a bed of 
bracken, and there smoke his cigar, while Katty read 
aloud to him from a book of Rudyard Kipling’s prose. 
Mrs. Grantham, retaining the faithful Jim as her 
aide-de-camp, dismissed the others— “ anywhere,” she 
said. 

At this, Agatha Carnifex challenged Bob to return 
with her to a spot in the woods where from the boat 
she had seen a curious and superb bank of tawny 
fungi freckled with crimson spots. 

“ May I go, too ? ” asked Sybil. 

“You will only soil that pretty gown,” said Mrs. 
Grantham, practically ; “it is all boggy where they 
are going. Take my advice: keep cool and clean. 
Get into the canoe, and let Mr. Davenant show you 
the bed of water-lilies at the end of the lake. All the 
rest of us have enjoyed it this morning, and you really 
should not miss the spectacle.” 

“Yes; do go,” urged Agatha. “It is the finest 
flower-show you will have seen since Regent’s Park.” 

Sybil still hesitated. 

“ Will you come ? ” asked Davenant, in a voice that 
reached her ear alone. 

She yielded. Had anything forewarned Sybil that 
she would be placed in this situation, there might have 
been some holding back ; but the unexpected had con- 
quered her ; it seemed all so natural. 

When, on stepping into the canoe, she laid her bare 


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little white hand in his sunburnt one, Sybil felt what 
was coming toward her on swift wings of destiny. 
They paddled off, she sitting in the bow and facing 
him in speechless pleasure, until, at the extreme end 
of the lake, the canoe ran into a floating field of starry, 
snow-white blooms, golden at heart, exhaling richest 
fragrance, their chalices cradled upon broad, moist 
plaques of green. 

Under the nearest bank grew rushes, tall and vigor- 
ous. The air, steeped in perfume and filled with the 
errant particles of summer growth, was also melodious 
with the song of wood-birds, and resonant with the 
hum of bright-winged circling insects. The symphony 
of midsummer was at its climax. 

11 Oh, let us stay here ! ” she cried involuntarily, and 
a flash of triumph leaped into his eyes. 

While they lingered he shifted his place a little, at 
the other end of the canoe, to watch her more com- 
posedly. They laughed together like children at the 
rocking of their frail craft, and, once at rest again, 
began the babbling interchange of respective experi- 
ence since they had parted, just as if no cloud of dis- 
trust had ever come between them. He explained to 
her how, his visit to Hillcote having been twice before 
interrupted by business calls, he had come very near 
missing this chance also— and then where would that 
have left him ? How he had believed her to be stop- 
ping in the Engadine until the autumn j how nothing 
was further from his dreams than this surprise of her 
presence beneath an ancient pine-tree on the bank of 
Lake Pocasset j how, for him, life since he saw her last 
had gone on in the usual humdrum fashion ; he had 


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worked, worked, worked,— as he expected always to 
have to do,— without other relaxations than those 
possible in a hot town when every one excepting 
toilers has gone to the country. 

Sybil’s eyes shone upon him with soft compassion. 
She tried to realize this existence of his, so unlike any- 
thing in her acquaintance with other men. She 
thought of the debonair idlers she had seen in Lon- 
don and Paris, and New York’s great mill of workers 
without perspective seemed pitiless. 

“ But you have some diversions, surely ? ” she asked 
in a sad voice. 

“ Enough and to spare,” he answered with a smile $ 
“ but not, probably, of the kind you would recognize 
as such.” 

“ It sounded so dreary ! ” she exclaimed apologeti- 
cally. 

“Not dreary if one faces it with hope in his heart, 
and courage. And, you must remember, it is my life. 
Even before I met you I had my bright moments and 
rewards. Since then—” 

Her eyes drooped before his. With one hand trail- 
ing in the water, she drew to her a long green stem 
crowned with the peerless blossom of New England 
lakes. Davenant went on : 

“ I don’t like to tell you what a black time I passed 
through after I heard you were going to marry that 
man Cameron.” 

“ But I am not ! ” she exclaimed with enchanting 
disregard of consequences. “ I have no idea of doing 
so.” 

“You have come back to me heart-whole ? ” 


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117 


u To— to America,” she faltered, with an effort to 
recall her rash encouragement. 

“To me— to me! n he cried passionately. “I ’m a 
tyro, I suppose, and my brain is in a tumult, and I am 
desperately anxious for you to love me as I love you 
—as I ’ve loved you ever since we met. But I don’t 
want to ask you for yourself if you ’re not ready to 
hear me. I ’d rather you ’d silence me now, and give 
me a chance hereafter. If you ’ll give me that chance 
I ’ll do anything to win you.” 

Sybil’s mouth curved in a happy smile. 

“ Had you rather put it off ? ” she said, more mis- 
tress of herself than he was master of his palpitating 
speech. 

Mrs. Grantham, who had packed her baskets and 
ordered her horses put to the buckboard, stood upon 
the bank, gathering her chickens beneath her wings. 

“ It feels and smells like a thunder-storm,” she said. 
“ I really think, Mowbray, you had better let one of the 
boys go in the punt and call those two to come back.” 

“The storm is probably a long way off, my dear,” 
said her husband j “ and no doubt Miss G wynne and 
Davenant will be coming presently.” 

“If we are caught, mother, we can stop in that 
empty house behind the poplars on the main road,” 
said Master Jim $ “ and there ’s a shed for the trap 
and horses.” 

With a distant rumble of thunder, a little shiver in 
the branches of the wood began. 

“ You see, Mowbray ! I insist that you go and call 
them, Jim,” said Mrs. Grantham. 


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“ They are there,” said Miss Carnif ex, calmly, as the 
missing ones came in sight. 

The canoe, kept at the lake for his diversion by Mr. 
Grantham, was quickly deserted by its latest occupants 
and put under shelter. The party with hurrying 
footsteps climbed into the buckboard, and the horses 
trotted off. When they reached the ridge of the hill 
above the lake, the lightning had begun to play daz- 
zlingly, lacing the branches of the roadside trees. 

“ Faster, papa ! ” cried Katty, who, with one of her 
brothers, sat beside her father on the front seat. 11 1 
love this tearing along into an advancing storm. 
You fll surely get to the deserted house before the rain 
catches us.” 

All nature was in commotion. The tall grass and 
flowers of the wayside bent, and were bowed to earth. 
The surface of the fields of oats and corn showed deep 
dimples from the wind. A few drops fell. Thunder 
pealed again with a deep, glorious rumble, and again 
the lightning flashed, this time with a blue glare. 

Sybil, sitting between Agatha and Davenant, shrank 
and trembled irrepressibly. 

“ You are not afraid?” said Davenant, inclining to- 
ward her tenderly. 

Agatha, who had sat erect gazing toward the storm, 
seemed to have heard nothing ; but the next livid flash 
from the heavily charged cloud, that, as they drove 
under the shed of the deserted house, struck one of 
the row of poplars before it, showed Davenant the 
expression of her face. 

When, a deluge of rain over, the sun shone out into 
the warm, humid air, they resumed their drive. 


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119 


“ This is a true New England frolic of Dame Nature,” 
said Mr. Grantham. “ I wonder which was the most 
frightened of our party ? ” 

“ Not I,” said Katty. “ Mama was a little, for I saw 
her clutch Jim’s coat-sleeve, and Miss Gwynne looked 
rather white.” 

“ So did Miss Carnifex,” said Jim Grantham. “ I 
think she ’s the whitest still.” 

“ James!” said his mother, reprovingly; “never 
make personal remarks.” 

During the rest of his holiday Davenant walked upon 
air. Thanks to the isolation of the two houses in a 
quiet neighborhood, daily opportunity was afforded 
him to see his beloved, and sun himself in the radi- 
ance of her smiles. The necessity enjoined upon him 
by her of keeping their affair to themselves until she 
could announce it formally to her Aunt Lewiston lent 
the charm of mystery and device to their meetings. 
In the glorification of his spirits, he took the trouble 
to be extremely polite to Etta Stanley, who, to please 
her husband, had come into this barren district, but 
was longing to leave it for Newport. Mrs. Stanley, re- 
voking her earlier decision, now announced that Dave- 
nant had a great deal in him. She was prepared to 
launch with him upon one of her shadowy flirtations, 
wherein the man had little to do besides following her 
in public and appearing to be devoted. But to this 
Davenant did not respond; and, luckily for him, a 
friend of her husband’s, a connoisseur in horse-flesh, 
whose wife lived in permanence abroad, came up just 
then to stop for a week at Stanley Hall. This gentle- 


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man, well understanding how to dawdle unemotion- 
ally after his hostess, and save her from having to 
go about with Jack, relieved the situation for Dav- 
enant. 

Mrs. Grantham, as we have seen, the most good- 
natured of souls, was disconcerted by the new arrange- 
ment. She admired Sybil, but loved Agatha ; and on 
the day following the luncheon at Lake Pocasset, 
Agatha had terminated her visit, and gone to keep her 
father company at their own summer home in New 
Jersey, near Morristown. After her departure it was 
evident to the casual observer that Davenant could 
never really have cared otherwise than as a friend for 
the admirable Miss Carnifex. He was too cheerful, 
too emphatic in indorsing praises of her, too calm in 
her absence, too — everything but what Katrina had 
intended him to be. And at the end of the second 
day after the encounter with Sybil the keen-sighted 
Katty told her mother that she thought, and Jim 
thought, “ anybody with half an eye ” could see that 
Mr. Davenant was “ dead gone ” upon Miss Gwynne. 
Katrina, struggling with vexed unbelief, had to suc- 
cumb when Jim told her he had seen the couple out 
in the huckleberry pasture, sitting upon a boulder, and 
looking at the sunset, hand in hand. 

u That ’s not all, mother,” added the boy, with 
deeper excitement, his cherub cheeks ruddy, his eyes 
distended, as he whispered something in her ear. 

“James Grantham!” began his mother, then 
stopped short. So much for her idyl of Hillcote, 
wherein Davenant and her favorite Agatha were to 
have played the leading parts! 


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121 


Thus Davenant entered upon the kingdom of his 
hopes. In the fullness of his satisfaction there was no 
alloy. This great prize of life that had come to him 
seemed, like the lesser ones preceding it, his due. He 
was proud, exultant, in feeling that his manhood was 
about to be made complete. 


VIII 


OLSTOI lias said that a newly married 
man is like one who, having been 
charmed with the graceful and joyous 
motion of a boat upon the sea, after- 
ward embarks in it. He then feels 
the difference between contemplation 
and action. It is not enough for him to sit still and 
avoid rocking the boat ; he must keep on the lookout, 
be accurate in following the course, mindful of wind 
and weather, and is himself obliged to propel the 
heavy oars. 

Nothing of this had as yet suggested itself to Peter 
Davenant as, on their honeymoon journey, he sailed 
with Sybil out of the Bosporus for a cruise in the 
JEgean. 

The violent opposition of Mrs. Lewiston to their 
engagement, which, accepting no compromise, required 
Sybil to break with him or forfeit the shelter of her 
home, had precipitated matters. After a stormy week 
at her aunt’s house in Newport, the girl had yielded 
to his solicitation to be married quietly in church 
there, and go abroad until her aunt’s excitement should 
in some degree subside. In this decision she was sec- 
onded by her cousin St. Clair, who, attending her at 
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123 


the altar, not only gave her away in marriage, but 
presented the bride with a couple of strings of pearls 
more befitting a princess of the blood than the un- 
dowered wife of a hard-working lawyer. Others of 
Sybil’s friends who would have liked to be present 
were debarred by the hasty nature of the proceedings. 
Agatha Carnifex, the Granthams, and Ainslie sent 
gifts and good wishes. The affair, a nine days’ won- 
der of the newspapers, was in time superseded by an- 
other “ social incident ” offering opportunity for more 
flamboyant head-lines. 

Quickly wooed, quickly wed, Sybil was like the crea- 
ture of a dream. Not an acquaintance of her aunt’s 
and Mrs. Stanley’s way of thinking had regarded her 
action as other than the result of impassioned folly. 
People who knew better commended her for courage 
and independence in asserting, at two-and-twenty, her 
right to the husband of her heart. Croakers said this 
was the “ fine, enlightened stride ” of new womanhood. 
And, lastly, those familiar with Mrs. Lewiston’s tem- 
per when aroused by opposition averred that Sybil, 
poor creature, had really nowhere else to turn. 

The next most serious difficulty in their path had 
been Davenant’s adjustment of his affairs to take her 
away for a couple of months from the annoyances of 
home. When, this finally accomplished, the world was 
all before them where to choose, a memory of their 
first talk decided both upon a voyage in the Levant. 

From Paris they had taken the Orient Express to 
Constantinople, and finding it still too hot to do more 
than skim through the sights of that brilliant, dirty 


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town, had there boarded a Russian steamer bound for 
Smyrna and Alexandria, but intending to bring up en 
route at the Pirseus. 

It was a mellow day of autumn when their big, well- 
fitted modern vessel broke away from the throng of 
little rowboats, caiques, and launches besetting her 
sides as long as she lay at anchor in the channel, and 
up to the last minute embarking passengers and mails. 
The numbers and colors of these crafts recalled to 
Sybil the course at Henley regatta between the races. 
Deafened by the shouts of boatmen and stevedores, 
amused by the water pageant, our pair of travelers 
hung over the rail like two children, taking note of 
all they saw. A last impatient whistle had hurried up 
the gangway steps the family of a Turkish general, 
whose staff, on taking leave of him to return to their 
launch, were kissed in a patriarchal fashion while 
bending at his knee. His chief wife, a formless figure 
in a dark-green-silk night-gown, with a veil of striped 
yellow gauze, white-cotton stockings, and slippers 
without heels, presently established herself on deck, 
where, after straightening the tassel of her husband’s 
fez, she proceeded to eat sweetmeats held up in a sil- 
ver box by a squatting, amber-tinted slave-girl with 
white draperies and eyes like a faithful dog’s. 

Two little servant-girls in pink cotton, with veils of 
white cheese-cloth, ran hither and thither, carrying 
silver cups of water, and holding boxes of cigarettes, 
in readiness for their mistress’s call. The mother-in- 
law, a sallow old woman dressed in black, with bright 
eyes and a jolly laugh, took her seat behind the 
cruncher of many sweets j while the son and heir, a 


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125 


small boy in green- velvet jacket and knickerbockers, 
with a fez over his droll little foxy face, wandered in- 
cessantly, after the manner of his kind, in custody of 
a Turkish tutor visibly alarmed by the vagaries of so 
important a charge. High-class Armenians ; f amilies 
returning from a summer at Therapia to their homes 
in Egypt— among them a brown mother with a flock 
of little daughters like brown birds 5 an English 
couple ; a German professor and his wife ; a bride from 
Odessa with her Greek husband (this officer wearing, 
despite the sultry atmosphere, his full-dress uniform 
and tufted hat, and spurs) ; a dark-eyed belle from 
Syria, dressed like a French fashion-plate, on the re- 
turn with her papa and mama from the Turkish New- 
port ; a coquettish young Rumanian lady guarded by 
her white-haired Parisian husband ; more Turks, who 
kept aloof ; some Alexandrian citizens ; and a group 
of handsome Russian officers, made up the ship’s tale 
of first-cabin passengers. 

The lower forward deck of the steamer was even 
fuller of cosmopolitan variety. Our Americans, up 
above, surveyed the scene with eager interest. Before 
the ship left the Bosporus this space had been con- 
verted into a focus of Oriental color and animation. 
Lounging on mattresses covered with many-hued 
stuffs and rugs, a veiled harem occupied the center. 
About it were seen Turks at ease ; Greek and Arme- 
nian peddlers; Arab women and babies; a band of 
sturdy Montenegrins, with shepherd coats of the nat- 
ural tint of wool, leggings, and small caps embroidered 
on the crown, their belts stuck with knives and pis- 
tols; Circassians in sheepskin shulas ; sad-eyed Ar- 


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menian merchants in long black robes and crimson 
fezzes 5 a solitary muzhik in black velveteens, with a 
scarlet shirt and sash; and two Russian pilgrims to 
Jerusalem, with scrips and staffs and cross-gartered 
legs, lying asleep upon the boards, their red beards 
turned upward to the sky. 

The luggage of these travelers was as picturesque 
as its owners— bales, saddle-bags, carpet-sacks, and 
cushions of variegated hues and rich texture ; grass- 
woven baskets heaped with grapes and peaches ; melons 
hugged under the arm ; water-bottles, jugs and trays 
of pottery and beaten brass ; a medley of gleaming 
metal, embroidered stuffs, and sheenful silk. So de- 
lighted was Sybil with each new type, costume, or 
grouping that, her eye detached from its surroundings, 
Davenant could with difficulty induce her to come 
away with him to pace the length of the deck, and look 
back at the marvelous beauty of the vanishing city. 

Melting in the effulgent sunshine of an unclouded 
heaven, they saw vanish towers, minarets, mosques, 
palaces of pink-and- white fretwork, terraced gardens, 
cypress-groves, ancient crenelated walls dipping into 
the water, and the towering domes of St. Sophia. As 
they steamed out of the Bosporus a bird winging its 
way across the water, which at times it touched, at- 
tracted Sybil’s attention. 

11 That petrel of the Bosporus,” said, in good English, 
the German professor, who stood near them with his 
wife, u is almost the most restless fellow extant. The 
Turks give him the poetical name of 1 the lost soul 7 ; 
but my wife and I have bestowed a better title : we 
call him ‘ the American en voyage 7 ” 


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127 


u My dear ! ” said the lady, blushing, and touching 
her husband’s coat-sleeve. 

“ Oh ! Ah ! I beg your pardon,” said he, peni- 
tently. u Of course I supposed you to be English. I 
should never have taken you for Americans, you know,” 
he ended radiantly. 

“ Worse and worse!” whispered Sybil, as the two 
couples parted to resume their march. u Don’t let that 
eloquent face of yours show you mind it. If you were 
as old a traveler as I am, you ’d be accustomed to that 
pleasantry.” 

11 1 can be vexed with no one in such a scene,” he 
said, laughing. u Henceforward every inch of our way 
is through the classics. I must begin to furbish up 
my memories. There are two questions I forbid you 
to ask me: where Homer was born, and where was 
ancient Troy.” 

“ Just what I meant to do ! ” she said. “ If you don’t 
tell me all you know, or don’t know, I shall be obliged 
to appeal to our friend the professor, who, I can see, 
is giving Ms wife a flood of information.” 

“I ’ll swear I won’t be forced into the dragoman 
business ! But I ’ll tell you this : there was once a 
German youngster in a wine-shop who, after listening 
to the talk of some students about the Iliad, made up 
his mind that he would like some day to journey the 
way we are going now. In after years, when he had 
amassed gold and learning, he came to the Helles- 
pont—” 

“ That we shall pass at two in the morning ! ” cried 
she, in a vexed tone. 

11 — and, taking up his abode at Hissarlik, dug and 


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dug till lie had uncovered seven Troys. Out of that 
collection you may take your choice of the real one.” 

“ Don’t he provoking ! Be sure I sha’n’t ask you 
any more questions. Let us agree to see it all now, 
and read about it when we go home.” 

“ It occurs to me, incidentally, that must be Mount 
Ida,” said he, pointing over at the rosy snow of a sum- 
mit rising beyond the brown hills of the Asian coast. 
“ But never mind what it is, so long as we ’re here to- 
gether, far from the world, sailing, sailing to the south. 
Sybil, I did not think there could be such happiness.” 

“ Nor I. I have only one regret— that this time a 
year ago we had never even met.” 

“ A bagatelle ! ” he exclaimed, his voice thrilling joy- 
fully. “Why, we were traveling to meet each other 
then ! ” 

And now, the splendor of sunlight waning with the 
day’s decline, a violet mist gathered in the hollows of 
the Asian highlands. Along the western horizon the 
blue was lost in gold. A fresher breeze arose, lashing 
the surface of Marmora into lively billows, over which 
the deep-laden ship passed on a steady keel. As the 
sun forsook them, a long, wailing cry arose : 

“ Allah Ahbar ! To your knees ! ” 

It was a muezzin, who, stationing himself upon the 
bridge over the forward deck, reminded the faithful 
of the hour of prayer. Scattered about the vessel, the 
Mussulmans, everywhere kneeling upon little carpets, 
prostrated themselves toward Mecca. 

Sybil rebelled against the call to dinner in the 
saloon. 


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129 


u This is too beautiful to leave,” she said, holding 
back. 

A stout Frenchwoman, with mustachios, and carry- 
ing a pet dog under her arm, passing the couple at 
this moment, smiled at them benignantly. 

11 Oh la jeunesse ! ” she murmured with a rich sigh. 
11 One of these days, madame, you too will be hungry 
for your dinner.” 

“ Horrid thing ! ” said the girl, petulantly, when the 
French lady had gone on. 

“I ’m afraid I am hungry now— awfully so,” said 
Peter, guiltily. 

“ Then for your sake I ’ll go in. But we are to sit 
up on deck to enter the Dardanelles. I could n’t bear 
to miss the Hellespont.” 

Their evening meal, served at the captain’s table, 
had apparently been gathered by the steward from all 
ports of the vessel’s route : fish and mutton from Con- 
stantinople ; partridges from the Piraeus 5 kalatchi (the 
white rolls of Russia) and fowls from Odessa ; sweets 
from Syra ; wines, red and white, from Bessarabia ; 
fruits, nuts, and resined white wine from the Levant 
in general ; and, to conclude, Lilliputian cups of Turk- 
ish coffee, turbid with grounds and yielding rich 
aroma. 

“That was a pleasant little company,” said Sybil, 
afterward. “ How they all lent themselves to good- 
fellowship ! Imagine a lot of our countrymen, under 
like circumstances, loitering at table for the sake of 
merry chat ! ” 

“ Other countries, other conditions,” said her hus- 
band. 


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“You did not like my saying that, Peter. I see I 
must never find fault with the land of the eagle and 
the scream.” 

“Perhaps I don’t want your thoughts to shape 
themselves that way, because, when we go back—” 

“Don’t— don’t speak of going back!” cried she. 
“I want nothing to shadow this lovely, blessed voy- 
age.” 

« There should be no shadows about our thoughts 
of home, my darling,” he answered bravely, but at 
heart a trifle hurt. 

They strolled forward again to look down into the 
third-class deck. Under the electric light in the rig- 
ging, the groups, who had for the most part already 
disposed themselves to slumber, presented a new med- 
ley of picturesque attitudes. One of the women of 
the harem, a slender girl, had thrown her bare brown 
arms, covered with silver bracelets, above her veiled 
head. The old crone who guarded them was mixing 
coffee for a big bearded Turk sitting on a cushion, 
drawing at his narghile in its gold-embossed glass 
vessel. Amid a cluster of bag-trousered Mussulmans, 
whose hands, held behind them, forever toyed with 
strings of wooden or amber beads, stood a dashing 
figure, smoking a cigarette, dressed in the costume of 
a cavass (the Turkish soldier serving as guard at the 
embassies). His jacket, thickly wrought with gold, 
his full trousers of crimson silk tucked into long, 
wrinkled boots, the embroidered holsters of his pistols, 
and the mustachios curling about a hardy, handsome 
face, lent him an air both gay and martial. 

“ He was but recently a famous Montenegrin rob- 


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her,” explained one of the ship’s officers standing near 
the Americans. u They are quite in demand as ser- 
vants at the embassies.” 

With their chairs in a quiet corner, Davenant and 
Sybil sat upon deck until, about midnight, the pharos 
of Gallipolis came in sight. As they approached it, 
Sybil, running forward, stood under the shelter of the 
captain’s bridge to peer out into the darkness. Above 
her towered the mast, which, with its yard, both black 
in the shadow of an electric beacon, formed the image 
of a giant cross. In the rigging, outlined against the 
blue vault of the sky, millions of stars seemed tangled. 
Save for the silent specter of a Russian sailor gliding 
here and there, Sybil had the night to herself and her 
beloved. With Peter’s arms around her, her head 
leaning against his breast, life overflowed for her with 
love and peace and hope. 

On deck again for a long, bright day in the JEgean ! 
Leaving the Dardanelles (where, at the Hellespont, a 
health-officer in a small boat had stopped the ship for 
a brief parley), they skirted Lemnos,— between the 
twin summits of which was cradled Vulcan’s forge,— 
then Tenedos, and after that ran for hours between the 
mainland and Mitylene, ancient Lesbos, burning Sap- 
pho’s isle. Lesbian wine might have been circling in 
their veins, Lesbian sparrows twittering in their ears, 
so gay the mood of our voyagers. Following the line 
of serrated coast beneath summits of riven gray, the 
flanks of its lower hills clothed with olive-orchards and 
vineyards, they came at noon upon the chief town of 
the island, the walls of the ruined fortress of which, 


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built high and dry by Venetian masters of medieval 
days, were now washed by the encroaching waves. 

Thenceforward the scene was like the shifting of a 
kaleidoscope. Rock-piles, arising from the turquoise 
sea, assumed forever changing forms and tints. Bas- 
tions of Russian porphyry, jagged cliffs of amethyst, 
crenelated walls of lapis lazuli, a row of golden organ- 
pipes, a cone of crystal, a tawny lion couchant, far- 
away castles of pale, cerulean blue ! Along the shores 
of Asia Minor, the hills, with vegetation parched by 
the summer suns, were russet brown, bronze, and pur- 
ple; the villages, with their occasional olive-mills, 
were built in eyries to which roads like pencil-strokes 
went up. Over all this, resplendent sunshine, a lu- 
minous radiance of atmosphere that has kept in it the 
magic of ancient days, and from the water a light 
breeze, like the touch of a cool hand! 

“It is better than any book ever drilled into my 
boyish brain in a dead language,” said Davenant. “ I 
feel steeped in Southern color. And to have it with 
you beside me—” 

Sybil did not weary of such a chorus to every one 
of her lover’s songs of praise of his surroundings. She 
saw that he had indeed touched the meridian of satis- 
faction with created things. It checked upon her lips 
many a woman’s question and speculation about their 
future plans and mode of life. It was agreed between 
them to put off all these considerations until the return 
voyage to America, which they expected to make from 
Naples when they could no longer stay abroad. 

Sybil had never looked more lovely. Her fair, deli- 
cate face, with the forget-me-not blue eyes and wild- 


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rose bloom, bad captivated most of her fellow-travel- 
ers, who had always a word, a smile, or a courteous 
act for the young bride. To-day, when the vessel 
rounded into the sparkling Gulf of Smyrna, people 
kept emerging from their cabins in resplendent toilets 
that put Mrs. Davenant’s plain blue serge and straw 
sailor-hat in the shade. The fat French lady with the 
spaniel rustled by her in a fine confection of dress- 
maker’s art, topped by a hat with nodding lilacs and 
white osprey plumes. A little dark gentleman from 
Egypt, whom the night before Sybil had mistaken for 
a waiter, appeared in high-heeled lacquered boots, 
pearl-colored trousers and hat, a frock-coat, blue scarf, 
yellow kid gloves, and a stick. 

“ They look askance at us,” whispered Sybil. “We 
are not dressed for the occasion of landing in a fash- 
ionable port. And I, who thought Smyrna was all 
figs, and brigands, and the finest camels in Asia! 
Look, Peter ! Here comes my rival, the other bride, 
in rose muslin, with such a gorgeous hat! I must 
run and change before we come to anchor. Peter 
dear, would you wear your white duck or the striped 
blue-and-white cotton I had on that day at Pocas- 
set?” 

“The white duck,” said Peter, judicially. “Keep 
the blue-and-white till we get home and I can have a 
glass case made for it.” 

“ How long ago it seems,— that day at Pocasset,— 
and how far away Pocasset is ! ” she said dreamily, her 
eyes fixed on a line of white glistening salt-heaps edg- 
ing an island coast. “ I am afraid we were in a dread- 
ful hurry.” 


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“ We shall have the rest of our lives to repent our 
rash action in,” said he, rallying her. 

“ Repent ! When I have you ! Only sometimes I 
think how very much we are alone in the world. Oh, 
Peter, you must be so good to me— and I to you ! ” 
Her April moods always charmed him, but to-day 
she had struck a deeper note. He almost felt that for 
the first time she realized the nature of their bond. 
While he knew she could not exhaust the depth and 
breadth of his enveloping love, he wondered if she 
were equally certain of herself. So far, she had been 
his queen enthroned in a fond heart. By and by, 
when she should come to step down from the bridal 
pedestal and work with him side by side— 

“ Do you know,” she interrupted his meditation, “ I 
think it is so much nicer traveling without a maid and 
courier. Some girls could n’t get on at all 3 but I— I 
have always done my own hair and known how to 
keep my things in order. I could not endure to have 
my clothes disorderly or not fresh and crisp.” 

“ That I am sure of,” he said, looking at her with 
approving eyes. At the same time another one of 
those shafts of apprehension struck him. Did Sybil 
understand what it meant not to have all her sur- 
roundings meet her dainty taste? 

“Iam afraid,” he ventured, “ it will be long before 
I can supply you with a maid and courier, or with 
journeys that would require them. Our travels must 
be around the hearth-rug for some time. But you 
have had so much, your mind will always be filled 
with lovely pictures.” 

u Don’t speak of anything but this ! ” she exclaimed 


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lightly ; and again the pagan spirit of her creed— to 
enjoy the hour, and let the future go— took hold of 
him regretfully. 

Sybil selected from among the gay little fleet that 
came out to wait upon the ship the boat having the 
prettiest rug in it. 

When they reached the projecting quay, where a 
young Turk waited to vise passports, the two were 
distracted by the din of solicitations from a crowd of 
guides. Whether to go to Ephesus or the moon, Sybil 
could not decide, and ended by declaring she preferred 
to stroll about the town. 

“ But if I We got to take one of these bores, I ’d 
rather go back to the ship,” she said petulantly. 

A nice young man in a blue-serge suit— evidently 
a suave citizen willing to be of service to tormented 
foreigners— here interposed politely. 

“ Madam has only to pass these rude fellows by,” 
he said in English, “and to walk on, paying no at- 
tention.” 

Across the blinding sunshine of the quay they hur- 
ried, diving into a cool back street paved with large 
flagstones newly watered, its shade-trees resting their 
branches on the house-roofs. A glimpse into a court- 
yard revealed pepper-trees mingling their feathery 
foliage with the rosy blooms of oleander. And then 
from a narrow lane emerged a train of stately camels, 
swaying their long gray necks in the wake of a small, 
belled donkey. 

“Let us follow the camels,” exclaimed Sybil, glee- 
fully, “ no matter where they lead us ! ” 


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But she had reckoned without her host. There, at 
her elbow, stood the nice young citizen, lifting his hat. 

“ Mister wishes to conduct madam to view the bazaar 
firstly?” he said. “ I am serving many distinguished 
English in the capacity of guide—” 

“We have no need of you,” said Davenant, briefly, 
turning upon his heel. 

They thought to shake him by entering the Hotel 
Huck for a lemonade and a glance at the “ Levant 
Herald.” When they emerged, he was awaiting them, 
affable and merciless. He infested the honeycomb pas- 
sages of the bazaar, appeared in front of the mosque, 
refused to be lost in the medley of Oriental peo- 
ples overflowing, with cries about nothing, the noisy 
little Turkish town. Upon their taking refuge in a 
book-shop to purchase the Iliad and the Odyssey in 
modern Greek, the Pest framed himself in the door- 
way, still insufferably smiling. 

“I come out to ship to-morrow morning— eh?— to 
conduct mister and madam to view a fig-factory ? ” he 
said inquiringly. 

11 Fig-factory be hanged ! ” shouted Davenant, at the 
end of his patience. “ If you speak to me again I ’ll 
knock you down ! ” 

At evening the hotels, caf6s chantants, and theaters 
were brilliantly alight. The long quay was a parterre 
of colored lamps. Fainter gleams, like fireflies, twin- 
kled in the old houses scattered about the misty 
heights beneath the ruined acropolis crowning Mount 
Pagus. Music and laughter came floating from shore 
to ship. The Italian gunboat at anchor in the harbor 


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threw out sheaves of colored fire that broke in showers 
of stars, repeated in the water. The pale sickle of the 
moon, hiding her diminished head behind the peaks 
of Two Brothers, vanished from the scene. 

The lovers, who had the deck almost to themselves, 
sat there, as usual, till late into the night. 

Away again on the morrow, sailing ever over a sea 
now green, now blue, now streaked with rose, past 
islands of amethystine hue— the purple of Scotch 
heather drenched in sunshine. All day they skirted 
the mainland, here a line of tawny foot-hills, in 
strange shapes, like lions and tigers couched together, 
under summits, gray, wrinkled, ancient, resembling 
mastodons in stone, the feet of these high-piled mon- 
sters lost in one continuous garland of olive and 
orange, grape and fig, almond and laurel. 

At six in the evening the ship came again to anchor, 
facing Chios, the scene of Homer’s school of poetry. 
The town of the blind bard has been swept out of 
sight by time and earthquake. At the foot of volcanic 
peaks, like cones of gunpowder, clusters confidingly 
the new town, built in tinted plaster, gay, cheerful, 
and overflowing with the riotous animation of the 
Levant. Only an old-time fortress near the sea tells 
the tale of bygones the classic traveler demands. 

There was to be no landing at pretty, lively Chios. 

When the great Russian came to a halt in their bay, 
a line of small boats shot out to meet her with the 
intrepid dash of a boarding-party of Indian canoes. 

“We shall soon be in Bedlam,” said Davenant. 
“ These Chians are the worst of the turbulent Levan- 


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tines for racket. It must always have been a noisy 
place. If I don’t forget, Homer was nearly frightened 
away from here by the barking of Glaucus’s dog.” 

In a few moments the water about the vessel was 
swarming with small craft. The passenger-boats, 
spread with brilliant rugs, were crowded with people 
and luggage of many colors 5 the freight-boats piled 
with hampers of grapes, figs, and nuts, sacks of raw 
mastic, and long-necked wicker bottles of mastic wine. 
The boatmen, manceuvering them over rough waves, 
eager each to get in ahead of the other at the end of 
the gangway, stood brandishing oars and boat-hooks, 
shouting, yelling, plunging, fiercely quarreling up and 
down the ranks. They were handsome fellows, as 
active as cats, dark-skinned, bare-legged, bare-armed, 
with gleaming teeth and eyes, merry in spite of furi- 
ous raging at their mates. The trim Russian sailor 
stationed at the foot of the ship’s ladder had to strug- 
gle for his life to keep them from hurling their pas- 
sengers past him upon the steps. One persistent devil 
was brought to terms only by a blow that landed him 
on his back in the middle of his boat. All through 
the evening the hurly-burly raged, till at a late hour 
the ship got under way. 

u Too bad we must leave this steamer,” said Sybil, 
sighing. 11 It has all been perfect, wonderful ! Such 
weather ! Such a sea ! When we are rich, Peter, we 
shall come here and dawdle for weeks in a yacht. But 
never do I expect to find again a ship so comfortable 
as this. What would Lord Byron have said to marble 
bath-tubs, with the water of the iEgean turned in 
through silver-plated faucets? We shall find out the 


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difference when we get into one of the Italian boats 
to go through the Gulf of Corinth.” 

“ People who have put off travel as I ’ve done get 
the benefit of fin-de-siecle comforts,” said her husband. 
“ I can’t believe that to-morrow morning I ’m to see 
Hymettus and Pentelikon and the Parthenon from 
this deck. Sybil, shall I tell you that my only fear in 
reaching Athens is that we ’ll meet somebody we ’ve 
seen before ? ” 

“And letters! Nobody knows how I dread that 
visit to the banker’s and the post. Oh, these happy 
people on board who have no Newport gossiping about 
them, no New York newspapers paragraphing them—” 

“ My wife shall drop out of the newspapers,” said he, 
fondly $ u and in the world of our love Newport will 
make no difference.” 

11 Peter dear, I ’ve been wondering. Are we to get 
a house at once ? Because I know of one on Park 
Avenue— the Monty Wutherings had it last year for 
six months. I ’m sure the owner will let it from 
Christmas till May, and we should n’t want to be much 
in town till Christmas.” 

11 My dear little girl,” he said patiently, “ we must 
1 be in town ’ as soon as we get back ; and, what ’s 
more, we must stay there. And I ’m dreadfully afraid 
a house the Monty Wutherings would take is far above 
our purse.” 

Sybil’s blue eyes opened a little wonderingly. 

“ Oh, but I assure you, darling, it ’s such a tiny 
house it could n’t be dear if it tried.” 

u Do you chance to know the rent ? ” 

“ No one ever spoke of that to me. Oh, Peter, is n’t 


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it ridiculous to be bothering about rent here, and on 
such an evening as this ? Look at the moon over the 
mountains in that clear saffron sky, and the far lights 
of Chios ! Our last night on the iEgean ! Say some 
verses for me, please.” 

“Let us live, my Lesbia,— 

Let us our love enjoy. 

Out upon old men's frowns, 

Count them not worth a toy. 

The sun may rise again 
When once the night is past, 

When our brief light is gone—” 

“ I will hear no more,” she protested. “ It begins to 
sound melancholy—” 

u Catullus ends it cheerfully enough,” said he, laugh- 
ing. 

“ I am tired of poetry ; let us walk,” she insisted, 
slipping her hand within his arm. 


IX 


HE crown of their voyage was to be the 
ring of mountains lying in purple 
shadow about Athens and the Acrop- 
olis. Davenant, glass in hand, had 
been on deck since sunrise, gazing 
eagerly at the various points of the 
Grecian islands, identifying Minerva’s temple as they 
passed it, and at last recognizing with a thrill those 
mighty piles of marble, Hymettus and Pentelikon, be- 
tween which arises, upon its umber hill, that gem of 
the dead as of the living world, the Parthenon. 

Sybil had stopped in the saloon for a cup of tea be- 
fore she joined him. When they steamed into the 
Piraeus the rapt gazer felt her light touch on his arm. 

“ I wonder how I ever pretended to enjoy anything 
before you were there to share it,” he remarked. 
“ The morning has felt incomplete without you ; and 
in other days I wanted to be alone when I was sight- 
seeing.” 

“ I also will own that this is just a little better than 
traveling with my aunt,” said she, mischievously. 

While they stood surveying the approach to the 
Athenian seaport, amid the crowd of vessels of many 
nationalities lying along the quays, a conspicuous 
141 




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object was a beautiful yacht painted white, with the 
Stars and Stripes flying at her masthead. 

Instantly Davenant’s cap was lifted from his head, 
and a look of proud and reverent affection came into 
his eyes. 

“ What is it ? ” asked she, curiously. “ Oh, only an 
American yacht ! I can’t imagine being glad to see 
that ; for most likely there ’ll be some compatriots at 
the hotel who ’ll find us out, and there ’s the end of 
our lovely isolation from the world.” 

“ A man would be a poor creature, in my opinion, 
who would n’t feel a thrill at the sight of his country’s 
flag in a foreign harbor,” he answered. 

“ I never thought of that side of it. Perhaps I have 
seen too many of them,” she said, a little chilled by 
the suggestion of reproof. “ At any rate, I shall ask 
this Cook’s boatman, just coming up the side, who the 
owner is. They know everything about the docks.” 

“ ‘ The Almee, belonging to Monsieur Willoughby of 
New York,’” was the reply Sybil conveyed to her 
husband, who had not left his stand. “Just as I 
supposed. Those Willoughbys ! who own a boat be- 
cause it ’s the fashion, and are both so dreadfully sea- 
sick I wonder they ’ve the courage to go outside of 
harbor.” 

“The yacht is a beauty, though,” said he, admiringly. 
“Ah, there begins again that Southern clack and 
tumult of boatmen. But nothing will ever equal 
Chios ! ” 

In their hotel, in rooms with long windows opening 
into a portico of snow-white marble, its pillars fram- 
ing in full view the hill of his lifelong dreams, Dave- 


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nant left his wife to rest, while he set out on foot to 
scale the classic heights. What he felt and thought 
on the staircase of the Propylaea and on the step of the 
great temple, where he stood for a long time drinking 
in the scene and air and influence, must be imagined 
by those who share his sentiment. 

At the portal of the exquisite little temple of Nike 
Apteros his visions were rudely disturbed by the ap- 
proach of a large, bland personage in a too correct 
yachting-suit, who fell upon him with fervor, extend- 
ing his hand. 

“ My dear sir, I ’m charmed to see you here- 
charmed. Met you at dinner at the Granthams’, and 
am well acquainted with your high reputation at our 
bar. My name is—” 

“Of course— Mr. Willoughby,” said Davenant, 
gathering his scattered wits together. “We were told 
that is your pretty yacht in harbor.” 

“ Yes ; I bought the Almee last year from Monty 
Wuthering, who had got tired of her. Fine boat, 
is n’t she ? Sent her over to the Mediterranean, and 
joined her at Gibraltar last month. M’ wife had so 
much care and anxiety last winter, getting into our 
new house—” 

“I— ah— remember,” hastily interposed Davenant. 

“ —that the doctors said she could n’t undertake the 
care of it this winter. On the verge of nervous pros- 
tration was Mrs. Willoughby. So we made up a little 
party for this cruise in the Mediterranean and Ionian. 
Came through the Canal of Corinth, or, I might say, 
scraped through,— m’ wife quite hysterical over the 
narrow passage,— and expect to winter in Egypt.” 


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“Do you stay long in Athens?” asked his hearer, 
wearily. 

“ Just as long as m’ wife can be contented here. By 
George! Davenant, we ’re at the best hotel I ever 
struck in a foreign country. 1 ’d be willing to put in 
a good stop here myself. But tell me of Mrs. Dave- 
nant. Of course you are on your wedding- tour. The 
world knows very well about your movements. Can’t 
carry off a belle of society without suffering the pen- 
alty of having it discussed. Like to have a copy of 
the ‘ New York Interviewer/ giving a full account of 
your wedding ? Think m’ wife has one at the hotel.” 

“ You will excuse me,” said Davenant, stiffly. 

“No offense meant. Everybody has his turn in the 
newspapers, and everybody knows what old lady Lew- 
iston is when her back ’s up. You ’ll be interested to 
hear that m’ wife ’s secured for our expedition the one 
all the society columns are saying will succeed your 
fair lady as the beauty of the smart set— Miss Claribel 
Hilton. Heard of her, no doubt ? Pretty as a peach. 
Mrs. Stanley tried to get her for Lenox before we left *, 
but m’ wife was too clever— whipped in with an invi- 
tation for this cruise. Some good fellows are of our 
party— several friends of your wife’s— Allen, Willy 
Lang, and Beau Frisbie. Tried for Cleve, but he was 
in England visiting, and I could n’t catch him.” 

Davenant, writhing with impatience, was yet struck 
by the names mentioned. He knew them to belong to 
people of Sybil’s acquaintance, hitherto unapproach- 
able by the lavish Willoughbys. The idea of this 
downpouring of idle pleasure-seekers upon the pre- 
cious hours of his waning honeymoon sent disgust into 


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his heart. But stronger than all other feelings was 
for the moment his desire to he rid of a Willoughby 
in the shadow of the Parthenon. 

It was inevitable that the Davenants should run into 
the other camp. After luncheon in their sitting-room, 
Davenant carried his wife off for a round of mild 
sight-seeing. He had found time during the morning 
to drop into the museum of the Acropolis and admire 
the recently discovered “ Winged Three,” with its ser- 
pent's tail, and now went back to give her a glimpse 
at it. 

“ Think of this splendid monster swooping down 
through ether every evening to gather tidings of what 
threatened Athens from the outer world, and return- 
ing to the Parthenon with the rising of the sun ! ” 

“What strikes me in their sculpture," said Sybil, 
“ is the grand, free forms of the women. If we could 
all be molded and hold ourselves erect like these stat- 
ues and fragments, we 'd be fit to Hake the lead.' 
Did you see the small size of that pretty Greek girl's 
waist who got into her carriage before ours at the 
hotel? I am sure she cannot draw a long breath 
comfortably.” 

“ Ah, Mrs. Davenant ! " said a voice. A good-look- 
ing man in light tweeds, who was surveying a frieze 
in rather bored fashion, had turned and was saluting 
them. It was Sybil's old acquaintance, familiar to the 
wealthy leisure circles of New York as Willy Lang, 
who took the circumstance of meeting them in Athens 
as he would have taken a similar encounter in Hyde 
Park or Fifth Avenue— or, for the matter of that, 
Djibouti. 

10 


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“ Rather a poor season to be here, but we 're well 
enough at the hotel,” he said indifferently. 

Lang, an old admirer of Sybil's, was well informed 
as to the romantic marriage excluding her from her 
aunt's good graces and bank-account. He admired her 
still, but wondered why Davenant had been such an 
ass as to take a bride under such circumstances, es- 
pecially when everybody said that the fellow was 
getting ahead in the world like wild-fire. Nothing 
could have induced Lang to share Ms modest income 
with a wife. It was all he could do to knock about, 
buy drinks and cigars, clothe himself like a lily of the 
field, and pay club dues. The rest of his enjoyments 
came out of the purses of other people, to whom he 
gave the equivalent of his good looks, fine figure, and 
knowledge of the world, intending to do so until such 
time as it should please his fancy to secure a wealthy 
wife. 

When Sybil introduced him with graceful pride to 
her husband, Lang treated Davenant with some show 
of civility. His shrewd, lazy remarks reminded Dave- 
nant of Ainslie, whom he had always liked, though in 
Ainslie there was the spark of individuality lacking in 
the present specimen. Keeping pace with them in the 
round of the museum, he stood lifting his hat at the 
carriage-step, outside, after Sybil had taken her seat 
in it to depart. 

Davenant could see that Sybil was rather gratified 
than otherwise by this meeting. With Lang she had 
plunged at once into a talk concerning people and 
things Davenant had already tried, for his wife's sake, 
to care about, but tried in vain. He was generously 


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glad for her to have this pleasure, and at the same 
time a very little piqued at her animation in partak- 
ing of it. 

“ You like Lang, then?” he said as they drove off. 

“I like some of the things he likes, rather,” an- 
swered she, with a mutinous smile. “My dearest 
Peter, you can’t expect me all at once to live on your 
mountain-tops and never go down into the valleys. 
Now, tell me candidly, what do you think of Willy 
Lang ? ” 

“ I ’m afraid I sha’n’t think of him after we ’ve been 
parted for five minutes, though he ’s pleasant-enough 
company. The worst I have against him is that he is 
willing to be the guest of the Willoughbys.” 

“ Who caused you to thrill with their American flag, 
remember ! ” 

“I wish they had remained invisible beneath it. 
Sybil, I foresee endless vexations through these peo- 
ple being here. It is almost cause for moving.” 

“The hotel is so large. We can have our meals 
always to ourselves. In the evenings sometimes it 
might be fun to— oh, no, no ! what am I saying? I 
am not Sybil Gwynne, and do not belong to that set 
now. I am Mrs. Davenant, an entirely reconstructed 
young person, who glories in her handsome, clever 
husband, and would n’t change him for all that these 
people stand for. Indeed, Peter, I ’m in earnest. And 
if I ever seem to you weak in these matters, think of 
what my whole life has been, put in the balance with 
the few months since you appeared to influence me for 
better things. I don’t envy Claribel Hilton in the 
least, stepping into my old shoes. She ’s quite welcome 


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to them. I thought Etta would take her up when I 
deserted. Etta must have a girl friend. But she ’ll 
need a long time to get over ClaribePs traveling under 
Mrs. Willoughby’s wing. There ’s been a rumor that 
Claribel is in love with Willy Lang, and perhaps that 
accounts for her being here. But he does n’t even 
look at her. She ’s not rich enough. Any one who 
gets him must contribute millions and a house. Those 
other men we ’re going to meet are of Lang’s sort, 
only not as nice. You ’ll see them all over Europe, 
amusing themselves. They ’re rather ashamed than 
otherwise of being called Americans. They don’t like 
being mixed up with our vulgar herd that travels; 
though, to tell the truth, Peter, I don’t either.” 

“Yet we shall soon be hand in glove with Mrs. 
Willoughby.” 

“Oh, the Willoughbys have crept ‘ in.’ They are 
bad, certainly, but no worse than the parvenus of every 
nation that rise to the top by spending money for other 
people’s entertainment. It is a sure sign the Wil- 
loughbys are 1 in ’ that Willy Lang consents to come 
on a cruise with them.” 

“ I am sick of their ‘ ins ’ and 1 outs ’ ! ” exclaimed 
Peter. “ See what they ’ve brought upon us already 
—to waste Athens in talking about them ! ” 

But the glory of past and present soon blended to 
drive from the grumbler every thought that was not 
of pure rejoicing, when they watched the sun go down 
behind “ his Delphian cliff.” 

Peter had lifted Sybil to rest on a shattered pedes- 
tal in the grass under the eastern range of pillars of 
the Parthenon, now deserted, save for a few other 


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visitors, and the guardians of the place, who were 
jingling their keys in impatience for the orb of day to 
go down and let them be done with gaping travelers. 
And thence onr conple had strayed down to the plat- 
form on the western end of Nike’s lovely temple, and 
stood looking at the scene in the silence of perfect 
sympathy. 

Sybil could not know what this meant to his thirsty 
soul, for the first time slaking itself at immortal foun- 
tains ; but she saw his deep pleasure, and was glad in 
it. They were standing where old iEgeus stood to 
look for the ship that was to bring him news of his 
son Theseus 7 victory or defeat in the encounter with 
the Minotaur; as he watched, the royal vessel had 
come into view, but with black sails, and the king, 
taking this for an announcement of his son’s death, 
had leaped headlong to destruction from the cliff. 

Just now the far reach of mountains, valley, sea, 
and islands was bathed in u the tender grace of a day 
that is dead.” Nothing like it had ever greeted Dave- 
nant’s eyes before. The memory of it would go with 
him to his grave. 

The last rays of the sun saw them hurried by the 
guides from their classic pinnacle where all was bliss. 
Driving back through the iasse mile of Athens, the 
cheerful scenes of the street after working-hours were 
in strong contrast with the forsaken ruins overhead 
At the wine-shops, and outside the house doors, women, 
children, soldiers, and peasants were meeting, greeting, 
circling, and chatting, like a chorus scene of the opera. 
Men and women in Albanian dress, manly and hand- 
some Cretans in their baggy knee-breeches with boots 


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reaching half-way up the bare calf, some Turkish 
women in yashmaks, made points of color in the scene. 
Greek women and girls were at the fountains, filling 
stone amphorae. Between the white-, pink-, and yel- 
low-plastered house walls— between the hedges of cac- 
tus, aloe, palm, and carob— arose with every passing 
by of wheels or foot-passengers a gray dust, thick and 
heavy, that, settling upon the inhabitants, did not 
appear to incommode them in the least. 

There was no help for Sybil Davenant. Although 
she had said to herself that she would never go near 
her, she knew quite well that pay or receive a visit 
from the unconquerable Mrs. Willoughby she must. 
She found in her rooms, on the return from driving, 
the cards of all the party, with an urgent invitation 
from Mrs. Willoughby to join them at dinner, which 
was at once declined. 

“ You had better go alone first, after dinner, and I 
will stray in afterward,” said Peter, with a groan. “ A 
man always makes a poor show when on bridal exhibi- 
tion. I shall go for a stroll through the streets, and 
you can say you don’t know where I am.” 

Sybil’s appearance in Mrs. Willoughby’s drawing- 
room— the one appertaining, of course, to the most 
expensive suite of the hotel— was the occasion of a 
lively welcome from two women who had exhausted 
each other’s conversation. 

“ Our men are all scattered somewhere,” said Mrs. 
Willoughby, a little more confident in manner than 
when Sybil had last seen her. “ Claribel and I were 
just wondering if you would not come. And we are 


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dying to see your husband. I ’ve told Claribel what 
a beauty he is— an excuse for any girl’s rash—” 

“ Go on j don’t be afraid,” said Sybil, blushing a little, 
but mistress of herself. “You cannot say more of 
him than he deserves. He will come in presently to 
thank you for the emotion the flag on your yacht in- 
spired in his patriotic breast.” 

“ Oh, my dear ! I sometimes say to Mr. Willoughby 
I wish we could run up another set of colors. Our 
flag is just the signal for us to be fleeced in every port 
we go to. The yacht ’s a very nice one, certainly. 
My cabins were fitted up for Mrs. Wuthering, who 
has such sweet taste. But one can’t stand the noise 
and smells of these Southern harbors. Besides, it ’s 
a change to get into a hotel and see somebody ; though 
unless you happen to know people, I think these for- 
eign hotels are very keep-to-one’s-self places. It ’s 
ever so much livelier at home.” 

u I know nothing whatever of hotels at home,” said 
Sybil, “ except to leave cards at them.” 

“ Nor I,” said Claribel, not to be outdone. 

“ I don’t mean that I ever stay at hotels at home,” 
Mrs. Willoughby hastened to say. “Of course not” 
with two houses of my own. You have no conception 
of our troubles with our new house in Fifth Avenue 
last year. After I ’d furnished it I was a wreck— a 
perfect wreck— and that ’s the reason for this trip.” 

For a wreck Mrs. Willoughby certainly preserved 
a comfortable weight and aspect. But Sybil had heard 
so many of her class making excuses to come abroad 
and wander, through excess of money and vacuity of 
mind ! Mrs. Willoughby was just a shade better than 


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the Americans who, in so many foreign cities, form 
colonies, and are content to dwell together in insular- 
ity of spirit among those who will know them not. 

Mrs. Willoughby was actually bored beyond mea- 
sure by her Grecian sojourn. The true aroma of the 
place could never be perceived by her. In Paris, 
London, at the German baths, or in the Italian capi- 
tal, she might have found some kindred spirits and 
much diversion ; but here ! 

And it was not what it seemed, to be the head of 
such a party as were her guests. The men treated her 
with but scant politeness. Her husband, having asked 
them at her bidding, often wished he could dismiss 
them, giving each a return ticket and hastening him 
home. Miss Claribel Hilton, a dark beauty with a 
keen eye to the main chance, had set out intending to 
utilize the cruise not only in killing time, but by ac- 
complishing a long-eluded capture of Mr. Willy Lang. 

The most agreeable incident, so far, of ClaribePs 
travels had been running, in this way, upon the 
bride and groom who had effected such a meteoric 
disappearance from Newport. She wanted something 
to put in her “ letters home,” she said ; but Claribel 
was suspected of eking out a slender stock of pin- 
money by contributing items of so-called “ social in- 
terest” to fashionable journals. She had also a keen 
desire for Sybil to hear the general expression of be- 
lief that Miss Hilton would succeed her in the place 
Sybil had vacated. 

“ If you want gossip, I can give you a good deal 
from Newport in some cuttings that have been sent 
me,” she said, fully aware that these columns con- 


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tained many statements of the nature she desired to 
impart. 

“Oh, no, thanks,” said Sybil. “We have n’t yet 
reached the stage of the honeymoon when one wel- 
comes an enemy. We are shutting our eyes, indeed, 
to everything at home till we see Sandy Hook again.” 

Miss Hilton bridled. She felt she had not made 
exactly a success. 

“ It will be nice for me to let our friends know you 
have survived all that has been said of you,” she went 
on pleasantly. 

“ Shall you print it ? ” asked Sybil, now thoroughly 
aroused. 

Vexed with herself for minding such pin-sticks, she 
turned to talk with poor, worried Mrs. Willoughby, 
who found herself in the position of a theatrical 
manager between leading ladies at war. 

“Then you do mean to go back home?” pursued 
Miss Hilton, after a moment’s rest. “Won’t you 
find it rather a change? I believe your husband 
does n’t go out much — Mrs. Stanley said he did n’t — ” 

“He has gone out now,” answered Sybil, with de- 
cision. 

What might have ensued was prevented by the en- 
trance of the men. Mr. Willoughby, who brought up 
the rear, having managed to pass an hour at billiards, 
was now looking forward to the time when he might 
be allowed to go to bed. 

The others, discovering in Mrs. Davenant much 
more of an attraction than in the too evident Miss 
Claribel Hilton, advanced with animation to surround 
her. When Davenant came in, he found his wife the 


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brilliant center of a little group of masculines, rein- 
forced by poor Mr. Willoughby, who had hailed with 
satisfaction something that would oblige him to keep 
awake. Mrs. Willoughby, with her strip of tapestry- 
work, and Claribel, knitting a golf-stocking destined 
for the manly calf of Mr. Lang, sat, dull outsiders in 
the tribute to Sybil’s charms. 

Davenant’s arrival changed the situation. Sup- 
pressing a desire to hit to the right and left, and 
carry Sybil away from these fellows to— one of the 
peaks of Hymettus, let us say,— he displayed an ease 
and good-humored courtesy that won for him appro- 
bation undiluted. But Sybil knew that, spite of ap- 
pearances, the sooner she cut short the evening the 
better for Peter’s reputation ; and, resisting all efforts 
to draw her into a water-party the n^xt day, she 
hastened to make her adieus. 

“ You poor dear, what a hero you were ! ” she said 
in the corridor. “ But you could not have held out 
much longer.” 

“ And what a heroine my wife was ! Sybil, what 
have you done to antagonize that Hilton girl ? ” 

“ Nothing more than to 5e,” she said, shrugging. 

“ She is in love with Lang. Lang cares not a rap 
for her. He was probably at one time in your train—” 

“ What an unraveler of plots my lawyer is ! Lang 
has really cared for but one person— himself.” 

“ But he was reputed to be your follower. That 
accounts for it.” 

“Let us go out on the portico and look at the 
moon,” she said, drawing him out into the peerless 
night. 


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155 


The next day they went by carriage to Eleusis. A 
smart shower of rain refreshed the atmosphere, falling 
when they had but just passed into the suburbs with 
the cactus hedges and the plaster walls prickly with 
thistles growing atop, the gnarled, warty old olive- 
trees and the oleanders leaning out of the courtyards, 
all gray with dust of summer. 

Up the hilly road they rode between pine-trees in 
shape 'ike lilac plumes, and of a bright spring green. 
The rain, that had brought out from the earth a deli- 
cious scent of wild herbs, ran away in yellow rivulets 
to the valleys. Beyond them were bold, darkling, 
wood-crowned summits with velvet clefts, not so long 
since haunted by brigands, but now in possession of 
archaic shepherds wearing mantles of rough cloth, 
leggings, and steeple-crowned hats, and carrying guns 
to keep away the wolves from their “ black sheep and 
white.” Groups of local militia patrolled the hills to 
see that the wanlering flocks kept sacred the inclo- 
sures of the farmers. These mounted infantry wore 
frilled petticoats, white leggings cross-gartered with 
black, and Albanian slippers with tufts of red silk on 
the toes. In peasant carts, gaily painted, drawn by 
mules in bright harness, the owners, trusting to their 
faithful beasts to find the way home, lay asleep amid 
sacks, barrels, piles of wicker bottles, and empty bas- 
kets. Ancient crones in sleeveless overcoats of white 
wool with stripes of black embroidery sat upon don- 
keys, carrying on their laps rosy babies slumbering 
amid vegetables, fowls, and fruit. Children, brown 
and merry, ran beside stalwart peasants j and straight- 
backed girls, bearing amphorae on their heads, walked 


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with a free, firm tread in heelless slippers. And this, 
as Sybil saw it, was the modern procession upon the 
classic Sacred Way ! 

They had stopped for a bit to visit the ancient 
Byzantine church at Daphni, with its old mosaics 
newly brought to light by the Grecian Archaeological 
Society; and then drove on to where the Bay of 
Eleusis, a rippled sheet of blue, laughed as it came 
up to their feet. 

Here, where once Demeter’s maidens danced and 
sang, and waved their garlands about the flower- 
wreathed animals they led to sacrifice, our couple 
fell to talking, as moderns will, of subjects far re- 
moved from these retrospects of long-gone days. 

“ You did not hear me, dearest; you are not listen- 
ing,” said her husband, after he had repeated a remark 
about the lakes above the road, wherein the priests 
of Eleusis used to fish. “Now you are thinking of 
something that gives you pain. May n’t I share it, 
Sybil?” 

They were on the rear seat of an old caleche, the 
dragoman and driver up in front. For the last ten 
minutes the dragoman had consented to intermit his 
eternal contributions to their knowledge of events 
and localities, and was enjoying a cigarette. 

“It is nothing — just a trifle,” she contradicted 
herself in feminine fashion. “ I wish, Peter, we were 
going to housekeeping in that red farm-house behind 
the high walls ! I like its tiled roof with the gay 
colors, and the vines trailed over the balcony in 
front, and those vineyards and olive-orchards all 
around ; but alas ! ” 


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“Why do you sigh? You must tell me, Sybil,” 
urged the impatient lover. 

“ I am vexed with myself for caring what that girl 
said last night.” 

Little by little he drew from her her tilt with Clari- 
bel Hilton. His eye flashed and his lip curled when 
he heard it. 

“You could mind that? You , who are my wife! 
My wife ! ” 

“ Peter, I told you I was ashamed of it. I am not 
a strong, big man. I ’m only a girl brought up to 
consider these things all-important. If I do not 
think so still, it is because I fell in love with you.” 

“The triviality of it! The vulgarity! Why, we 
are as far above such people as— That it should 
find a lodgment in your brain, much less wound your 
sensibilities — ” 

Sybil hung her head, blushing deeply. 

“Do these puppets flatter themselves they are 
‘ living in an ethereal atmosphere and breathing the 
air of the gods’? And can my Sybil fancy—” 

He stopped suddenly, as if disdaining to carry out 
the protest. Sybil, who had never seen him angry, 
shrunk within herself. She thought he was making 
it unnecessarily hard for her, and bringing super- 
fluous energy to bear upon his expressions. 

“ Puppets they may be, but till now they have been 
all the friends I have had— that is, if you mean those 
I lived among till I met you,” she said. 

He did not answer, and in this strained mental 
attitude they drove to the foot of the hillside scarred 
with excavations, and scattered with the relics of the 


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glorious Demeter’s shrines. Leaving the carriage 
before a little wine-shop in the village, they climbed 
the slope, and after ascending the steps of the Prop- 
ylaea, stood at last upon the marble portico of the 
great Temple of the Mysteries. The autumn sun fell 
in floods about them, but the air from the Ionian was 
cool and crisp. In the intense, clear light, the moun- 
tains of Salamis seemed near enough to caress with 
the hand. The sea sparkled with a million facets. 
In that moment of supreme beauty the spell of old 
days descended upon the pilgrims j their little troubles 
fell away, their hearts wavered toward each other, 
and then blended in tenderness. 

“Do you know what the Eleusinian mysteries 
were ? ” asked Davenant of his bride. 11 First, worship 
of a woman,— a true, good, loving woman,— then the 
cult of a faith that led its votaries on from aim to 
aim of this world to trust in a world to come. We 
are standing in one of the most famous spots in his- 
toric Attica, and, as it seems to me, the source of the 
noblest impulses of those old pagans’ lives.” 

“ Forgive me ! ” murmured Sybil in his ear, as she 
rested her hand upon his arm. 

This was not relevant, but Peter understood, and 
was touched by it. His brief anger long since spent, 
he had been reproaching himself bitterly for the pain 
he had caused her. They began anew their explora- 
tions, and before it was time to return Sybil had 
merrily proposed to him to “ set up housekeeping ” in 
the cave where Pluto had carried Proserpine to spend 
her honeymoon ! 


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159 


With all his desire to visit Olympia alone with Sybil, 
Davenant could not be selfish enough to deny her the 
delight of a run in the Almee to Patras, whence they 
would go on by rail to visit the ruined city of the 
divine Hermes. This excursion, projected by the men 
of her party, had found Mrs. Willoughby averse to again 
“ undertaking to squeeze through that dreadfully nar- 
row Canal of Corinth, where they had banged against 
the sides last time, and frightened her nearly to death.” 

Mrs. Willoughby therefore electing to go by rail to 
Patras, her husband felt that he must needs accom- 
pany her, thus leaving Sybil to chaperon Miss Hilton 
on the yacht. 

By half -past eight of a fine, bright day, when the 
arch of blue overhead seemed a single hollow gem, 
they embarked at the Piraeus and, taking possession 
of the wicker chairs and umbrellas on the carpeted 
deck, were soon cutting the sapphire sea to round 
Salamis. Sybil, leaning back, with Lang established 
at her side for the morning, took as a matter of 
course this situation, that proved so annoying to her 
husband— and to one other. She had always been 
accustomed to see men keeping at a distance from 
their wives when in parties on pleasure bent. For her, 
under the present circumstances, to withdraw with 
Davenant would have been manifestly in bad taste 5 
and Willy Lang’s languid civilities could give concern 
to no one save Claribel, whom he took visible pains 
to flout. Miss Hilton, in self-defense, assumed hilar- 
ity, laughing aloud, and engaging the others to admire 
her pretty vagaries. 


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Davenant, finding his occupation gone, walked oft 
forward, and while smoking alone surveyed the scene 
with an interest unquenched by adverse circumstance. 
At midday they steamed in between the steep clay 
and gravel banks of the canal, — dreamed of in vain 
by Caesar, Nero, and Adrian, - with its railroad bridge 
lying like a ladder across the chasm high above ; and, 
making the entry of the Gulf of Corinth in safety, 
the Almee began a voyage every hour of which over- 
flowed with interest and beauty. 

11 Luncheon, luncheon ! ” cried the thin, high-pitched 
voice of Miss Hilton in Davenant’s ear. “ Antiquity ’s 
all very well, but the rest of us are starving.” 

11 I am sure my wife will excuse me till we ’ve passed 
the Acro-Corinth,” he said ; “ then I shall make up for 
my delay by eating all there is.” 

“I keep forgetting that Mrs. Davenant is playing 
hostess for the day,” said Claribel, her eyes flashing 
through her mask veil of white gauze. “ And so does 
she, apparently. One has n’t the heart to interrupt 
that nice long tete-Atete, has one ? You know, they 
say Lang values only what ’s out of his reach. A 
year ago at Newport it was she who— but here am I 
letting my giddy tongue run on. Of course Sybil has 
repented of girlish follies, and is going to be a model 
matron now— just like her dear friend Etta ! ” 

Davenant did not answer. With glass lifted, he 
was scanning the grand, bold promontory crowned 
with the ruined castle of Penteskoupia, at foot of 
which, close to the water’s edge, lies the modern town 
of Corinth. 

'*1 suppose all moons must wane,” went on his 


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tormentor, artlessly. “ Sybil was saying how im- 
mensely jolly it is to have run upon our jolly lot. 
To look at her, one would n’t suppose she is a recent 
loving bride. But that ’s an immense relief to every- 
body. If there ’s anything that bores hopelessly, it 
is newly married gush.” 

Davenant, turning, directed his gaze across the 
wide, sparkling gulf to the range upon range of 
Boeotian and Peloponnesian hills. Above them tow- 
ered Parnassus, gray and hoary, with patches of black 
moss in its cavernous depressions. The mountain of 
the Muses was now crowned with a wreath of blue- 
black cloud, whence a column of white mist, shot with 
sunlight, arose to heaven. 

“ An altar of the gods 5 not a green thing in sight ; 
Apollo fled ! ” he muttered to himself. 

Miss Hilton, properly rebuked for her impertinence, 
could not withhold a final shaft. 

“ Then I shall tell Sybil you want us to go to lunch- 
eon without you ? ” she said, moving off . “ Take my 

word for it, she ’ll prove resigned. If she ’s a wise 
woman she ’ll make the best of being with people of 
her own set now. When she gets back to New York 
she may feel the need of them.” 

After luncheon, Sybil, slipping her arm through 
her husband’s, led him away to a quiet spot. 

“You have been teased by that horrid Claribel?” 
she said. “ I saw it the moment you came in to table. 
Your eyes have a cloudy look; nobody’s eyes are as 
beautiful as yours, Peter—” 

“ I was a fool to come on this party,” he said, smil- 
ing at her feminine method of peace-making; “but 
11 


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where you ’re concerned I must always be a fool, I 
suppose. Sybil, this shows you our lives have nothing 
in common with chattering idlers. I can’t fit my feet 
to their pace. I want you to myself, to walk with me, 
apart ! If you love me, give up the attempt to join 
your old life with the new. Let us cut loose from 
your past, and work out our own future.” 

“ My dearest Peter, you are not practical,” she said, 
in perfect amity. “ Because Willy Lang is an amus- 
ing do-nothing, and Claribel Hilton a sharp-tongued, 
spiteful creature, let us not be driven to make such 
desperate resolution ! My whole heart is yours. I 
am happier with you than I could be elsewhere. But 
we can’t break with people. In two words, we must 
live for others as well as for ourselves.” 

“ My Sybil a moral philosopher ! ” he exclaimed in 
a voice that showed a tinge of vexation. 

“ Don’t mock me, Peter. I am only talking com- 
mon sense.” 

“Away with common sense when we are sailing 
under Parnassus ! ” he cried petulantly. Somehow, 
he seemed to her like a big, vexed child. The pro- 
tecting, soothing impulse came over her with a wave. 

“I love you,” she said simply, turning upon him 
the gaze of her bluest of eyes. 

Their day, thus checkered, passed into sunset. Le- 
panto, Don John of Austria and his courtiers danc- 
ing down to death, Byron and Missolonghi (whose two 
lights glimmered afar as the dusk fell), even the cur- 
rant industries of the shores of this inland sea, 
were discussed between them at intervals, when- 


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163 


ever Sybil could leave the party to join her hus- 
band. Davenant, throwing off all pretense of socia- 
bility, kept himself aloof— or, as Miss Hilton after- 
ward informed her friends, sulked bearishly. Sybil 
did not mind his bearishness. She knew the cause of 
it, and forgave. But she was aware of a panic she 
had rather have been spared, lest the present condi- 
tions should extend into her future in a way that 
would hedge her in unpleasantly. She saw that be- 
tween their two lives of every day an intermittent 
rivulet of separating habit ran. She resolved that, 
come what might, it should not widen to a constant 
stream. 

These reflections went with her to Olympia into the 
presence of Hermes, standing on his pedestal, smiling 
immortally at the infant in his arms. And she no- 
ticed that Peter, who had hitherto yielded himself 
prisoner at once to such marvels of ancient art, with 
the homage of a rapt school-boy and a fond scholar 
combined, now stood before the masterpiece of Praxi- 
teles in almost moody silence as he gazed abstractedly. 

When they were in the train going back to Athens, 
—for it was resolved to leave the Almee at Patras 
pending the voyage of her owners to Corfu,— Mrs. 
Willoughby, who noticed Peter’s aloofness from their 
party, of which Sybil was still the center, said with a 
laugh in the bride’s ear : 

“ Seems a little out of sorts with us, does n’t he ? 
But dear me, child, it would n’t be a honeymoon 
without a tiff or two ! Besides, your honeymoon ’s 
over, days and days ago.” 

Sybil sighed. 


X 



ISS CARNIFEX sat in her morning- 
room, directing envelops for the cir- 
culars of a newly organized society 
of which she was president, secretary, 
and board of managers in one. It 
had been a forlorn hope of charity, 
of which she had taken charge. Until it should be 
more upon its feet she would not expend a penny of 
their small fund in employing help for its clerical 
needs. 

While thus occupied, her father, in bicycle costume, 
in which he resembled an ancient Strephon, came in, 
and stood discontentedly upon the hearth-rug before 
a little wood fire that the cool spring morning had 
made agreeable. 

“I wish to goodness you 7 d drop those decrepit 
widows, or whatever they are, and come for a spin 
with me out to the Riverside,” he observed. 

“With pleasure, daddy,” said she. “I ’m on the 
last quarter of my last hundred, as it is. I thought 
you were safe and happy in your chair, reading that 
new novel I gave you, that everybody *s talking 
about.” 

“ 1 7 ve had to go back as much as three times and 
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re-read a page to find out what the woman means,” 
was the vexed answer. “ Her sentences are so swathed 
in mystery I could n’t make head or tail of the story. 
Give me a good, rattling novel of adventure in plain 
words, say I ! I would n’t exchange ‘ Monte Cristo ’ 
or 1 Ivanhoe ’ for a year’s issue of this modern stuff.” 

“Nobody ’s going to interfere with your 1 Monte 
Cristos ’ and 1 Ivanhoes,’ daddy. But, before I go to 
change, have you seen in the morning papers about 
that will of Mrs. Lewiston’s ? ” 

“No; but I hope the old woman relented, and left 
a few thousands a year to help out Sybil Davenant.” 

“No mention whatever of Sybil. With a few 
legacies to those spoiled old servants of hers, and a 
thousand a year to her cousin Annie James, what is 
not given to St. Clair Lewiston goes outright to build 
a new wing to St. Jeremy’s Hospital, of which her 
husband was a director.” 

“I am sorry for that,” said the old gentleman, 
thoughtfully. “But no one who knew her will be 
surprised. Davenant’s refusal to live in her house 
spoiled the only attempt at peace-making. They say 
that poor stick of a son, St. Clair, is on his last legs, 
and his money will go to an uncle in Omaha. I ’d 
have thought Mrs. Lewiston would outlive St. Clair, 
certainly. Gad ! you may n’t believe it, but she was 
a monstrous pretty girl. I remember her and her 
sister Sybil at a ball at old Delmonico’s in Fourteenth 
street ; dressed alike, in white tarlatan, with camellias 
in their hair. It made my heart go pit-a-pat when I 
danced a redowa with Sybil, I remember. She mar- 
ried Gwynne, a kind of a shilly-shally man who col- 


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lected embroideries and carried intaglios about in his 
waistcoat pocket. Gwynne could n’t stand the crude 
atmosphere of America, he said. When I saw him in 
Paris, in ’71, he was the most aimless ass I ever looked 
at. Spent his life in bric-arbrac shops, Hotel Drouot, 
and all that. The only thing that kept me from 
wanting to kick Gwynne was that he knew wines.” 

“ At least he was amiable, I ’ve heard.” 

“ Amiable ! Who wants a man to be amiable 1 ” 

“ It ’s a deadly fact, father, that you are so your- 
self.” 

“Nothing of the sort! I detest skim-milk. No- 
body ’s worth living with who has n’t got a dash of 
old Adam or Eve in ’em. The grudge I cherish 
against Gwynne is that he was one of the pioneers in 
this running-away-from-home-to-live-abroad business. 
And the best commentary I can make on that is to 
point you to a result. Look at his daughter, Sybil 
Davenant.” 

“ Father dear,” said Agatha, putting down her pen, 
and straightening her desk mechanically, “I think 
you are too severe on Sybil.” 

“ They have been married hardly any time, and yet 
she has managed to warp that fine fellow away from 
his career.” 

Agatha’s face was grave ; her hand shook over her 
work. 

“ Indeed, daddy, that ’s too much to say.” 

“ I know what I ’m talking about. The whole bent 
of Sybil’s life and thoughts is in the opposite direc- 
tion from his ; he adores her ; and— you see the con- 
sequence.” 


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167 


“He is no weakling,” cried Miss Carnifex, with 
spirit. 

“No; it is the very strength of his love that ’s 
blinded him to the rest. Grantham himself told me, 
when he dined here the other day, and you women 
were in the drawing-room, that— this was his very 
expression— ‘ Davenant has stopped short.’ ” 

“It is a phase. He will pass out of it. He will 
never stop, except to get breath by the way.” 

“ It is ridiculous, in the first place, to see him dan- 
cing attendance on her at the kind of places she goes 
to. And what ’s more, they can’t afford it. They 
must be living beyond his means. When it is known 
Sybil’s aunt has died without leaving her a penny, 
people will see that the Davenants have been going 
on too fast. When they first came home, he con- 
sulted me about a little house that I advised him to 
buy and try to live in for a dozen years. The next 
thing I heard was that they had rented a furnished 
house in a part where there are nothing but fancy 
prices. When we dined with them I could see that 
the whole scale is above what it ought to be. And, 
while she is as lovely and sweet and loving to him 
as ever, he looks jaded. Yes, Agatha, you know 
it; I see in your face you think so, too. Peter 
Davenant has made a big mistake. And if you ’ll 
please remember, I told you what would follow that 
first meeting of theirs at the Granthams’.” 

“ Daddy dear, if I ’m going to wheel with you, I ’d 
better dress now,” said his daughter, hastening from 
the room. 

“You did not allow me to get in my fine point 


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about that marriage,” went on her father, when, quite 
out of the park, they were speeding together along 
the Drive bordering the Hudson. “ It is this. She 
finds a rival in his intense Americanism. For her 
sort, America is a place to endure with philosophy, 
then hasten away from. She expects her husband to 
tag after her, begad ! But that Davenant won’t do. 
He will stick to his work, keep his beliefs, but struggle 
against a perpetual current forcing him backward. 
And this, Miss Carnifex, is the kind of wife lots of 
sensible parents of your and my acquaintance are 
educating their daughters to be.” 

Agatha, in her heart painfully convinced, again 
turned the conversation. When they had gone as 
far as desirable, and turned, they met many other 
couples on wheels, enjoying the quiet of the morning 
hour. Among these they were saluted by Sybil 
Davenant and Mr. Willy Lang, who were going 
rapidly, she in high spirits. 

“ There ’s another thing an old fogy does n’t fancy,” 
resumed Mr. Carnifex. “ The idea of a man down in 
his office slaving all day, and his young wife careering 
around on a bicycle in company with another fellow ! ” 
“ Daddy, I thought you considered a bicycle the 
greatest moral agent of the times.” 

“ With a nincompoop like that ! ” 

“Last time you mentioned him he was an addle- 
pated sponge,” suggested Miss Carnifex, with a smile. 

“He is both— a sponge and an addle-pate. And 
considering that her name has been coupled with his 
lately in a very offensive fashion—” 

“Has it?” 


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“Yes; and I ’m even told that a morning paper- 
ball ! I ’m sick of the subject.” 

“I knew there was a story afloat about Davenant 
having treated her brutally on their wedding- journey, 
somewhere in Greece,” said Agatha, flaming indig- 
nantly. “The most outrageous manufacture! But 
I never heard of this later invention. Father dear, 
don’t you think if people would only leave young 
married couples alone, to work out their life-problems, 
things would go far better? I am shocked — grieved 
by what you tell me. Somebody should— it is hardly 
my place— who is there, though, to warn that poor 
thing ? I believe she has not an idea of it. She takes 
Lang as a pendant— the sort of hanger-on women in 
her set have, because it ’s the fashion.” 

“ An edged-tool play, at best. Never mind, Agatha ; 
if we can’t help her, let us be selfish and enjoy this 
fine spring day. There ’s a view for you— the river 
and the Palisades. Gad ! what an appetite I ’ll have 
for lunch ! ” 

But Agatha, slow to arouse to interference with 
other people’s affairs, had determined to see if there 
was anywhere room for her to speak or act in Sybil’s 
aid. The same afternoon she set out late to walk to 
the Davenants’ house, and was joined in the Avenue 
by Ainslie. 

“ May I go with you a little way ? ” he said. “ It 
is an age since I ’ve got in to have a talk with you 
when there were not other men about.” 

“We can’t succeed in entrapping so fine a gentle- 
man to our lowly banquets, it appears.” 

“ That ’s not fair. Both times you asked me I had 


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promised some one three weeks ahead. But I ’m 
beginning to swear off from the invitations. I ’m 
tired of them, to begin with, and, secondly, I find they 
don’t fit in with working-hours next day.” 

“I hear golden opinions of you from my father,” 
she said. 

“He is flattering to a struggling kinsman, that ’s 
all. I ’m really a duffer at business. But, having 
started in, I ’m not going to drop out; and, strange 
to say, I ’m beginning to have a glimmer of belief I 
can sometime get ahead.” 

“ That is well ! ” she exclaimed. “ I am heartily 
glad to hear it.” 

“ It was because you were ‘ heartily 9 in favor of it 
that I first put my shoulder to the wheel, I think. 
There is nothing like a clear-eyed woman friend to 
help a fellow on his way. But I ’m at a wretched 
disadvantage beside so many fellows who were trained 
up to it step by step. As a matter of fact, I am like 
a foreigner getting naturalized. But no more about 
myself. You won’t come in here and look at the 
pictures?” pausing before the portal of a gallery of 
renown. 

“ No ; I have just time to get to Sybil Davenant’s. 
You may walk with me there, if you like. But if she 
is in, you must leave me at the door. I am anxious 
to catch her, if possible, alone.” 

“It is long since I ’ve attempted that,” he said, 
meeting her eye unconcernedly. “At first I kept 
away because it was dangerous to my peace of mind. 
Now I rarely find her without one man or another 
whom I don’t like in attendance. Actually, I was 


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once goose enough to believe Sybil Gwynne superior 
to that kind of thing j now I find she ’s like all the 
rest.” 

“ You were her friend— you are still,” said Agatha ; 
“ can’t you do something to stem the tide of gossip 
that ’s rising around her ? ” 

“I would be glad to settle whoever started that 
abominable lie, if that ’s what you mean.” 

u I do mean that. I hardly think her husband can 
be aware of it.” 

“ If he is, what can he do ? There ’s some enemy 
at work with her good name. To-day there was a 
hint, in print, that her old lover Cameron was coming 
back to New York, but would find his way 1 blocked.’ 
Now, I believe Cameron has n’t an idea of returning 
to New York. I hear, in fact, he ’s going to marry an 
Honorable Miss Somebody he ’s known all his life. 
But the idea will get abroad, and the originator’s pur- 
pose will be served.” 

Agatha, whom a man-servant in groom’s livery at 
Mrs. Davenant’s residence had invited to walk in, felt 
a little timorous about her errand when on the point 
of meeting its object. 

She passed through a square hall in the middle of 
the house, blocked with a table and chairs of carved 
Venetian wood, into a drawing-room crowded with 
furniture that seemed not only to have outgrown its 
quarters, but to be overdressed. In the light of a 
large, pink-shaded lamp, Sybil, wearing street attire, 
as if she had just come in, sat by a tea-table. The 
other inmate of the room was Mr. Willy Lang, who 
was just getting up to go. 


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“I was delighted to hear your name/ 7 said Sybil, 
affectionately taking her visitor by the hand. “ You 
are one of those of whom one never is allowed to have 
enough. Sit down in that chair ; it ’s one of the few 
comfortable seats in the house. I hate rented furni- 
ture 5 don’t you ? But what are we paupers to do ? Tf 
we ever get a house of our own, I shall have nothing 
to put into it but some of my mother’s things that have 
lain for years in a storage warehouse. Black-satin 
chairs, and couches with red buttons, and 1 suites ’ of 
blue-flowered brocatelle with bullion fringe. Can’t you 
see them ? Sugar and cream ? How well you look ! 
I thought so when we met you in the Drive to-day ; 
and your dear old, crusty, clever, sweet-tempered 
father !— he is an evergreen ! ” 

“It was because we met you that I came,” said 
Agatha, who did not lack for courage ; “ and what I 
saw when I got here gave me a better reason for mak- 
ing myself disagreeable.” 

“ Willy Lang ? Why, he ’s a fireside animal in every 
house where he chooses to drop in. My dear Agatha 
Carnifex, you surely don’t credit any of the absurdities 
you hear about me and himself f ” 

“ You know, then, that people talk ? In that case— 
pray pardon me ; if you were my sister I ’d say the 
same — is it wise for you to be seen with him twice in 
one day ? ” 

Sybil could not be vexed ; but she answered the hint 
of danger by a ringing laugh of amusement. 

“Why, Lang is so good to bicycle with, I can’t 
afford to lose him. And you, who know Peter, can 
think Lang dangerous ? ” 


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173 


“I don’t think so. The world is not so discrimi- 
nating.” 

“ Then trust me. Just now, since Aunt Lewiston’s 
death, we can go nowhere, and I need something to 
take me out of myself. Oh, Agatha, you do house- 
keeping ! Is n’t it simply awful, with these servants 
we have ? I wonder if that man is listening behind the 
portieres. One never knows, else, how they find out 
all our affairs. I have a tower of Babel in my little 
servants’ hall : a Swedish cook, a French maid, an Eng- 
lish butler, a Belgian footman, and a Finnish laun- 
dress ! And I begin to believe I hate them all. The 
winter has been one wild confusion, shifting and 
changing them. They backbite each other so there is 
not a moment’s peace. This morning my cook asked 
an hour’s leave of absence to take a bicycle-lesson, 
that she might go out on the road with ‘the Stanley 
girls ’—meaning Etta’s servants! I wish you could 
see my cook— forty-five, fat, and blowzy. I believe 
my butler takes photographs ; and the footman plays 
on a mandolin.” 

“ Did you hear of the lady whose cook told her the 
servants liked the new butler, because he gave them 
such interesting lectures about how they were all de- 
scended from Mr. Darwin ? ” 

“ I wish mine were,” said Sybil. 11 There would be 
some hope of law and order then. And the prices 
of things— the bills— the cheating of tradespeople! 
Agatha, I ’m afraid I ’m glad there is no place like 
home.” 

“You naughty girl ! ” said her friend. “ It ’s because 
you were taken unexpectedly. You knew nothing of 


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our eccentricities of New York service. And, if I may 
say so, this little house must be overcrowded with 
people to neglect the work.” 

“ I suppose so 5 1 have n’t the least idea,” said Sybil, 
helplessly. “ I began the way I thought things ought 
to be, and Peter knew less than I did. If it had n’t 
been for a tremendously good fee that came to him 
directly we got back from our wedding- journey, I be- 
lieve we ’d have starved. And I ’m sure I do prodigies 
of housekeeping. I look under things, and sniff at 
places, and make out the nicest little menus with the 
cook. We have no carriage, and simply ruin ourselves 
in cabs to go out to dinner and the opera and balls.” 

u Your husband goes to balls % The world is revolu- 
tionized ! ” 

“ He is an angel ! ” cried Sybil. “ He even offers to 
go with me. And he stays out the cotillion like a 
lamb. Etta says he is a revelation of what may be 
done with unpromising material.” 

“ And he likes it ? ” said Agatha, after a pause. 

“ He does n’t mind. Perhaps he would like better 
if we had a little more time to ourselves at home. But 
how can we, with dining out so much— the usual thing, 
you know— I ’ve never done anything else. Certainly 
he ’s a great success ; even Etta says so. Women rave 
over him. But I ’m not at all jealous. I like him 
to be admired; and especially since Claribel Hilton 
talked so patronizingly at first about Peter’s not 
‘knowing people.’ I believe it was Claribel who 
launched us ! I think, but for her, I ’d have been 
content to fall out of society. I have that maid 
she had last year,— Frangoise,— and I suspect the 


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175 


creature goes and boasts to Claribel of all our gay 
doings.” 

This, alas ! was not the wife Davenant had dreamed 
of winning, thought Agatha, with a real pang. Sybil’s 
rattling speech, her touch of recklessness, must come 
from some worry she did not choose to display. 

She showed Agatha the house, no part of which re- 
vealed a spot that pointed to repose after a busy day. 
It was the perch of birds of passage j that was all. 

“ There ’s something lacking, but I don’t know what 
it is,” commented Mrs. Davenant, frankly 5 11 and Peter, 
not having had a home since he was a little boy on the 
plantation, can’t tell, either.” 

“ I know,” thought Agatha ; but she did not 
speak. 

While she was taking leave of Sybil, Mrs. Grantham 
was admitted into the hall. 

As Agatha had before had occasion to observe, her 
friend Katrina had also suffered a change, hardly for 
the better. The long winter spent in engineering a 
debutante from one scene of gaiety to another, the 
half-sleepless nights, the rushing days, had told upon 
Mrs. Grantham’s pleasant, placid countenance. She 
could hardly give herself time to sit down on Sybil’s 
little sofa under the pink-shaded lamp. Through con- 
tinually darting in and out of the houses of her ac- 
quaintances in this way, she had come to abhor little 
sofas and pink-shaded lamps. 

The present visit could not be styled one of condo- 
lence upon the death of Sybil’s aunt. Katrina knew, 
as did every one, that the Davenants had little cause 
to mourn that event any more than to expect consola- 


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tion of a substantial kind from it. She bad heard also, 
from her husband, that Davenant’s stand in his pro- 
fession had begun to feel his relaxation of continuous 
interest in it, and that the young couple could not hope 
to maintain the liberal style of life in which they had 
begun. She had a sincere wish to be of service to 
Davenant’s wife, but, like Agatha, hardly knew how to 
set about it. The sight of Miss Carnifex, already in- 
stalled here before her, gave her a sense of encourage- 
ment. 

11 Don't go, Agatha,” she pleaded. “Stop awhile 
with me, and I ’ll drop you at your door. I had ex- 
pected to leave two more sets of cards to-day, but it ’s 
impossible. I am going to treat myself instead to a 
glimpse of you two nice women.” 

“My husband is one of your most grateful ad- 
mirers,” said Sybil. “ Whether he will thank you as 
much hereafter for leading him into this whirlpool 
called matrimony, I can’t say. But we cherish that 
delightful set of Thackeray you sent us— and your 
dear father’s silver dish, too, Agatha. Whenever I 
look at them I think there are some real people left in 
the world.” 

“You may consider yourself lucky that you escaped 
a diamond cross from papa,” said Agatha. “In his 
day, that was a wedding-present to special favorites.” 

“ Then Peter would have worn the cross, not I. I 
saw disapproval of me in the dear old gentleman’s eye 
this morning when we met you in the park. Dear 
Mrs. Grantham, Agatha has come here to scold me be- 
cause— because— tell her why, Agatha.” 

“ No one could scold you long j but Mrs. Grantham 


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will tell you no wife as young and pretty as you are 
can afford to throw the glove into the face of public 
opinion, no matter how sure of herself she is.” 

“Ah, no,” said Katrina, sighing. “The world is 
very hard upon pretty young women who are brought 
before it for approval. I have even heard malicious 
criticisms upon my poor child, who, however, is going 
through her ordeal without the least thought of her 
judges. Often it seems to me not worth the trouble 
I 7 ve undergone to put her on exhibition, poor darling.” 

“Katty looks the picture of health and enjoyment,” 
said Sybil. 

“ Yes ; but her parents have had enough of it. Our 
home is demoralized. My husband and sons complain 
outspokenly. After all, the trouble is not altogether 
in the high pressure of the times and of our commu- 
nity. In the early days after my marriage people ex- 
pected so much less j and young married couples were 
so much more— humdrum, I suppose we 7 d call it now. 
I remember, when we were rather poor, and I had my 
first home, with a tidy little maid in blue ribbons to 
open the door and wait on the table, how many happy 
evenings I spent in it, when my husband and I would 
sit under student-lamps, reading, and when now and 
again 1 7 d listen to hear if one of my babies was stir- 
ring in the crib up-stairs. Often, in answer to that 
little helpless cry of one waking in the dark, have I 
sped, light-footed, to the nursery— often bent down and 
laid my cheek on baby 7 s cheek, and soothed it to sleep 
again j and the pulse of that baby beating against mine 
has given me joy more exquisite than anything in 

life ! 77 

12 


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Sybil, going to her room after her friends had left, 
felt in a strangely softened mood. They were dining 
at home that evening, having withdrawn from an en- 
gagement out of respect for her aunt’s memory. As 
she called Fran^oise to attend her in dressing, the 
woman emerged from the adjoining room with a flush 
upon her face. 

“ I was only putting away some shirts for monsieur,” 
she muttered, although no apology was called for. 

“Put out something white, Fran^oise,— that little 
high frock of Indian cashmere,” said her mistress; 
“ and then I sha’n’t want you any more.” 

She wished to he alone. As she sat before her mir- 
ror, combing her wavy golden locks and twisting them 
up in a loose knot behind, remembrance came to her 
of the joyous weeks she and Peter had spent away to- 
gether following their marriage. She went over the 
many acts of his life since that she felt must have been 
inspired by pure unselfishness. When she heard his 
key in the hall door it was impossible for her to keep 
still and await his coming up. She ran to the top of 
the stairs, calling out happily, “ Oh, Peter, I am so 
thankful you have come ! ” 

Peter was too young a husband to resist this. Three 
steps at a time he bounded up to take her in his arms. 
Noticing that she had put on the gown he liked best, 
that her simple hair- dressing was after his favorite 
fashion, he was the more delighted. A cloud that he 
had brought up-town and across his own threshold 
vanished from his brow. 

11 Sit here and talk awhile j you have time enough,” 
she said, drawing him down beside her upon a couch. 
“For the last half-hour I have felt as if you would 


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never come. I ’ve been thinking, Peter, of many, 
many things. And I ’m going to be better to you, 
dearest. I ’m going to make you happier than I have 
done. When I remember all the distraction I ve 
brought into your life—” 

“ What is the cause of this fit of introspection ? ” he 
said, when they had sat in silence for a little while, 
both her arms clasped about his neck, her cheek to his. 

“ Oh, Agatha, I suppose— and Mrs. Grantham— and 
my own conscience. 1 7 m not strong enough for you, 
Peter. You should have chosen Agatha. All I can 
do is to be sorry when I ? ve been very, very bad.” 

“And have you now?” 

“ I ? m not going to spoil this moment by resurrecting 
my offenses,” she exclaimed radiantly. “ I only wish 
you ’d give me some way of proving how good I hn 
going to be.” 

Davenant went into his room to dress, feeling a 
sense of relief from oppression. For weeks past he 
had realized that they were drifting, with no prospect 
of safe anchorage. His ambitions, prospects, ideas, 
that immortal part of him which had hitherto lent a 
spring to his step, a sheen to the sunshine, a glory to 
the air, had been under a spell. His love for Sybil, 
although grown deeper and broader, seemed yet to 
enmesh him in silken cobwebs as strong as iron. The 
beginning of the second half of his first married year 
had not found him a happy man. 

With the warmth of her tender penitential promises 
in his heart, he told himself that things would go 
better. They were young ; he was strong ; the right 
way would open. Nothing was irremediable, provided 
Sybil loved him and her hand was clasped in his. 


XI 


AVENANT, hurrying into his room 
to dress for their belated dinner, did 
not at first perceive upon his toilet- 
table a note addressed to him in type- 
written characters. The discovery 
made no impression on a mind ab- 
sorbed with renascent hope of better things to come. 
What is one missive more or less, in the shower that 
daily falls upon a modern home ? When he was ready 
to go down-stairs, he took it up and mechanically 
tore it open. 

“Nothing is irremediable,” he was still repeating 
to himself, as he drew out the contents of the en- 
velop, “ so long as Sybil is true to her higher self and 
me.” 

A clipping from a newspaper fluttered down and 
lay upon the back of a brush with a silver monogram 
— Sybil's gift. Davenant hardly took in, at first, the 
meaning of the typed words upon the sheet infolding 
it. When he did, the fierce blood surged into his 
temples. He glanced at the clipping, and his face 
grew darker still with wrath. Lies though they were, 
what he had read cut him like a whip. 

Sybil, impatient at his delay, ran up herself to 
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181 


hasten him down-stairs. As she came into the room, 
she stopped, dismayed by the expression of her hus- 
band’s face. It was unlike anything he had ever 
shown to her before. When, frightened and wonder- 
ing, she tried to take the papers from his hand, he 
tore them to bits and threw them into the fireplace. 

“ Peter, what is it?” she said faintly, her heart 
beating hard. 

“Answer me. Has Lang been with you twice 
to-day ? ” 

“ Of course, Peter. This morning I wheeled with 
him, and this afternoon he joined me in the street, 
and came in for tea, as he has often done before.” 

“ I forbid you to speak to him again. I ’d like to 
kill him for what he ’s brought upon you ! ” 

Sybil stood transfixed. She saw struggling in him 
the animal man that made her want to turn and flee 
from him. She waited in silence awhile, till his rage 
had exhausted itself. Then she spoke timidly : 

“ If it ’s only one of those slandering newspaper 
paragraphs that everybody gets—” 

Davenant could not believe his ears. “Only”— 
this from a high, pure woman, lifted by his thoughts 
upon a pedestal above the mud of humankind ! 

“I don’t know about your sort of men,” he said 
blackly, “ but in my part of the world we don’t brook 
insult to the fair fame of our women.” 

“T have heard of those dear Don Quixotes of the 
South,” she said with a little curl of the lip. “ What 
a mercy you don’t carry a six-shooter in your belt, and 
a bowie-knife in your boot ! Peter, try to be reason- 
able. Lang can’t help this any more than we can. I 


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don’t know what ’s been said— I don’t want to know j 
but if you think your wife is the only one — ” 

“Good God!” groaned Davenant. He dropped 
into a chair, clasping his hands over his eyes. What 
he suffered now was more acute than the pain of the 
slander. 

“It must be owned, dearest, you are what Etta 
calls you— ‘rococo.’ You belong to the most delight- 
fully old-fashioned age. If you ’d heard all the things 
I have that are said of men and women of our world, 
—of almost every one in turn,— you ’d cease to think 
it such a mighty matter. So long as you know I ’m 
all right, and Lang knows it, why should you mind 
so much? How can I forbid him the house without 
giving color to this nonsense ? All such stories die 
down in time, and women are thought none the less 
of for them. Why, look at Mrs.—” 

“Sybil, Sybil,” he pleaded, with the agony of one 
pushed further than endurance goes, “if you ever 
loved me, say no more. What you have said has 
burned into my heart.” 

“ But, Peter,” she persisted, putting her arm around 
his neck where he sat, “you distress me dreadfully. 
Indeed, indeed, I do not understand.” 

“ That is it, God help me ! ” he cried, ridding himself 
of her embrace, and getting up to walk to and fro— 
“you do not understand.” 

Directly after dinner, which was eaten almost in 
silence between the married pair, Peter went out, 
telling his wife that he meant to work at the Bar 
Association library, and would not be home till late. 

Sybil, going into her little drawing-room, sat down 


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before the fire, feeling truly wretched. As her lonely 
evening dragged itself along, she was glad of a ring 
at the front bell, followed by the announcement of 
her cousin, Mr. Lewiston. 

This gentleman, with the touches of mourning 
added to his evening clothes, looked more than ever 
pale and shrunken. His small gray eyes peered out 
of red-edged lids. He dropped wearily upon a divan, 
doubled up his knee, nursing it with both arms, and 
complained of the chill of a late spring. After Sybil 
had exchanged with him a few commonplaces about 
his mother’s funeral,— which she, with Davenant, had 
attended, in a front pew of the church,— St. Clair 
burst out jerkily : 

“I ’m glad you ’re alone, Sybil. I wanted to tell 
you by yourself that I consider it a brutal kind of 
thing, the way my mother ’s left you. You stood lots 
at her hands that other people don’t know about, and 
to be chucked overboard like this, when you need 
money most, is n’t what I call nice.” 

“We can’t say anything, now, St. Clair,” answered 
Sybil j “ and I should tell you that my husband has 
not opened his lips in comment, one way or the 
other.” 

“ Then he ’s a devilish sight more civil than I ’d be 
under the circumstances. It would have been all in 
your favor had you two agreed to go to live in Wash- 
ington Square when she made you that offer last 
Christmas.” 

“Ah, but what an offer! We could n’t, in any 
self-respect, accept it. She treated Peter like oh ! 
as I said before, we can’t talk of it now.” 


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“Well, you know what you want, of course ; and 
Davenant ’s a plucky sort, certainly. But the long 
and short of my visit is to say that to-day I ’ve made 
my will, leaving you all, and more than, you ’d have 
got from my mother. And I wish you ’d take some- 
thing from me now to make amends for it. I sent 
my lawyer, you know, to offer this to your husband ; 
but he declined flatly. I ’d be glad to get you to 
reconsider it.” 

“ My dear St. Clair, you have always stood by me ! ” 
exclaimed she, touched by his kindness. “ But— but 
—you don’t know Peter. He ’s the soul of indepen- 
dence. Marrying me against the wishes of my aunt 
makes him more touchy, I suppose. At any rate, I 
know he would n’t hear of it. When he told me 
about your offer, he was really grateful to you ; but I 
could see nothing would have moved him to accept—” 

“Then you ’re pretty comfortably off, I take it,” 
said St. Clair, with a feeble grin of wonder at such 
disinterestedness in this age of gain ; “or else Dave- 
nant ’s a wonder from Wayback.” 

“ That ’s just what he is,” said Sybil, laughing, and 
then sighing— “a wonder from Wayback; and so 
dreadfully set in his opinions about right and 
wrong.” 

“My dear girl, you should hold on to your trea- 
sure,” commented her cousin, who was already begin- 
ning to weary of a conversation for him too long 
sustained. “ I must be off now to the club. I think 
I ’ll be sailing in a few weeks, to try a new place my 
doctor ’s found for me in France. If I can do any- 
thing for you meantime, you ’ve only to call on me.” 


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185 


Sybil saw him go out upon tottering legs, her ser- 
vant buttoning him up in a fur-lined overcoat before 
putting the little man into his brougham. 

“How could I tell St. Clair,” she asked herself, 
sinking again into her chair, “ that Peter says his 
reputation is such I must not receive or hold commu- 
nication with him alone? He meant well, and was 
really generous; and if Peter knows of this, it will 
only be for me to be lectured up and down. Peter 
expects too much. He is unreasonable; and, until 
to-night, I had no idea what his temper can be. Sup- 
posing he should ever turn against me like that ! I 
should die.” 

The tears coursing down her cheeks were with 
difficulty stanched when she went up to bed. She 
thought Fran<?oise, who awaited her, looked more 
self-satisfied than usual. Then it occurred to Sybil 
to inquire about the note left upon her husband’s 
dressing-table. 

u Who put it there ? ” she asked. 

11 Ma foi, madame,” began the woman, then poured 
out a rapid and wordy explanation of how it was the 
footman who had brought the letter in question up 
to her while she was engaged in putting away mon- 
sieur’s shirts. Jean had been asked at the door, by 
the messenger who bore it, to see that it reached 
monsieur as soon as he came in. Franchise had no 
idea the note was— 

“You are not asked to give me your ideas,” said 
Sybil, freezingly. “You can go now; I have done ’ 
with you.” 

And Franchise, flouncing down to the servants’ 


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hall, discussed with her mates, in gleeful enjoyment, 
every detail of the promising imbroglio up-stairs, 
together with many other matters connected with 
their employers handed along by the servants of 
other houses where free discussion of personalities 
goes on at table. 

“ That woman has a hateful face,” said the young 
wife, wearily. “ But Etta says they are all like that, 
and the only thing is to get what one can out of 
them, and pay them well.” 

With these and other graver thoughts to vex her, 
Sybil fell asleep. 

The difference between Peter and herself was not 
cleared at breakfast-time next day. When she saw 
that he was in an unapproachable mood, she took 
fright, and, keeping to her room, ordered a cup of 
tea to be brought to her there. Peter, hastening off 
directly afterward, had only a word, and that a 
formal one, with her. 

But if he cared not to speak, Davenant could act, 
and did so. Part of his work during the days ensu- 
ing, at the expense of office affairs of moment, was to 
trace to its fountainhead the paragraph New York 
had been enjoying for a week before he saw it. He 
was not one to sit with folded hands, and say, 11 This 
should not be, but what can we avail ? ” Step by step 
he followed the lie back to its originator. The money 
this cost him, by the way, he considered well spent. 
His suspicion that to Miss Hilton they owed their 
deadly stab in the dark proved perfectly correct. And 
Miss Hilton, her secret sold by her employer, received 
from her victim a rebuke and a warning that caused 


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her coward soul to tremble. Davenant smiled grimly 
when he left her. There was no mercy in his heart 
for her species of offender, and he made it plain. 
Claribel's only consolation, in her crushed and alarmed 
condition, was that the venom of this particular shaft 
could not be recalled ; and she felt quite sure that 
Davenant would never let any one know of his awful 
visit to her. 

Simultaneously with his bloodless victory over a 
foe most dangerous, Davenant received an overture 
to enter into a matter of professional business that 
opened to him a vista of excellent promise. It was 
of a nature that he, of all men, could deal with best, 
owing to previous connection with one of the princi- 
pals engaging him. The success of it would mean 
fame, and substantial reward in fortune. The oppor- 
tunity to recoup himself for the bad months past had 
thus come as if with a trumpet-blare of triumph. But 
in order to succeed, he must bring to the essay his 
best powers of brain and energy ; he must work nn- 
flaggingly, turning neither to the right nor to the left, 
nor pausing by the way. This, a year before, would 
have been a light matter to consider. Now he gravely 
turned in his mind how he could detach himself from 
Sybil's life in order to push his affair through. If 
he could only convince her of the interests involved 
—of the vital importance, to them both, of his work- 
ing by himself ! 

Davenant, who was going through what many an- 
other young man of ambition has had to meet, felt 
himself a brute to think of Sybil as an interruption 
to his career. But the time had come when she must 


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give way, or lie go under. He was keenly and bit- 
terly alive to the fall backward in his climb of the 
mountain of professional success. To make good lost 
progress, to scale the heights again, and go still 
higher, was now his healthy and absorbing wish. 

These few days of coolness between Sybil and him- 
self had proved intolerable to both. He knew that 
his own inability to pass at once out of the grief and 
shame the Hilton incident had caused him was greatly 
to blame for this. Sybil, rebounding like a child 
after a fall, had been ready and eager to make friends 
with him. 

When the day came that, having cleared all impedi- 
menta from his way, Davenant set to work in hard 
earnest in his great enterprise, he went home lighter 
of heart and step than he had been in weeks. He 
found Sybil the better for a walk with Agatha Carni- 
fex. It was an auspicious moment in which to unfold 
his plan of intended preoccupation and absorption 
for some time to come. Sybil, loving and sensible, 
would recognize the necessity. He felt sure that she 
would now prove herself the helpmate as well as the 
adored and cherished wife. 

“Oh,” sighed Sybil, when, after pouring out his 
heart to her in glowing eloquence, her husband paused, 
gazing with almost feverish anxiety into her lovely 
eyes, “ while you were talking I felt like somebody at 
the bottom of a cliff. I can’t climb it, Peter j indeed 
I can’t. But you sounded grand and inspiring, and 
you make me see what a wretch I ’d be if I did n’t 
help you. You know, dearest, that this is the best 
time for you to work. We are going nowhere ; people 


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are forgetting us. Besides, there is really nothing to 
do in New York after the 1st of May.” 

“ 1 have not yet discovered that fact,” said he, with 
a brightening face. 

“ Of course you must work, and I ’ll mope and try 
to make the best of it. If there were any peace in 
our household, I could do better • but to-day there ’s 
been another cataclysm. That horrid Fran^oise, that 
you made me send away, has left a trail of mischief 
after her.” 

u For heaven’s sake, don’t mention down-stairs ! ” 
interposed he. 

“I don’t mean to. All we can do is to live over 
the powder-magazine, and thank our stars when it 
does n’t explode. But I ’ll try, dearest ; I ’ll try to be 
happy without you—” 

“ Every evening for a while ? ” asked he. 

u Oh, dear, it is dreadful ! But if I must, I must. 
And, Peter darling, what ’s more, I ’ll promise not to 
mention summer plans till you give me leave.” 

Finding it a convenience to work away from home, 
Davenant now adopted the habit of leaving her as 
soon as their dinner was over, and not returning till 
she had long been asleep. For a week Sybil struggled 
valiantly against the depression of this mode of exis- 
tence. She read, practised her music, regulated her 
household accounts, and tried to fulfil the whole duty 
of a home-keeping American wife. 

But the hours were long, and against them warred 
all the previous years of her pleasure-seeking foreign 
life. At the end of the first week she put up a faint 


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plea that Davenant would stay with her for that 
Saturday evening, at least. 

“ My poor brave darling, I wish I could,” he said, 
kissing her tenderly. “ If you knew, Sybil, how I am 
going ahead in seven-league boots, you ’d pardon me. 
My brain was never clearer j my powers of work seem 
inexhaustible. And it is you — you who are at the 
bottom of it. Without you 1 ’d be dead-wood. Oh, 
my Sybil, this life of yours and mine is a common- 
place partnership to the rest of the world, but to us 
it ’s a kingdom. Let us control it royally. Help me, 
as only you can help me, to hold my throne.” 

He was gone, and the little house was doubly still 
for the loss of that buoyant, manly presence. Sybil, 
who nowadays cried often, bowed her head down upon 
her hands, and wondered if this was what she had 
married for. Peter’s great speeches, as she called 
them, pleased her ear ; but to them she could not open 
the innermost door of her understanding. She thought 
them picturesque, high-flown, and bore with them for 
the sake of her love for him, which had been steadily 
growing since their marriage. But she wished her 
husband were more pliant, more inclined to take tri- 
fling enjoyments, more like husbands she had been 
most accustomed to see, who shared with their wives 
in the commerce of social small talk. 

She went to the window, and looked out. An elec- 
tric light opposite showed the deserted street. The 
houses all about were dull, uniform, respectable. The 
few passers-by were faded working-people. Every- 
thing seemed commonplace, uninteresting. She en- 
vied her servants down-stairs, who, to the twang of 


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the footman’s mandolin, were apparently capering or 
playing hide-and-seek— such a merry racket they made. 

At this moment a carriage drove np to her door, 
disgorging a party consisting of a lady and two men 
in evening dress. Sybil, retiring behind her window- 
curtains, recognized her old-time chum, Mrs. Stanley, 
attended by a new Venezuelan attache from Wash- 
ington and by Mr. Willy Lang. Before she could 
form any plans for defense, they were in upon her. 
Etta, who liked to indulge in flights of this descrip- 
tion, had conceived, after dinner, the idea of going to 
a certain music-hall, u just for a minute, to see Amina, 
the woman who ’s dancing there now,” she urged. 
“ Jack said he ’d come, but at the last minute backed 
out, because it ’s a bore, and Amina’s ankles are too 
thick. Do come with us, Sybil ; I depend on you. 
As to your mourning being an excuse, that ’s quite 
too ridiculous. Nobody in your position would think 
of keeping in after a month. It will cheer you up to 
be with us. You must, now; I ’ll take no refusal. 
Davenant can’t complain, if he leaves you here mop- 
ing like this; now, can he, Lang? Do you help me 
to coax this hold-back Sybil not to spoil our little 
1 spree.’ ” 

Sybil blushed vividly. 

“ I need no one to coax me, except you,” she said to 
Etta, while Lang looked imperturbable. 

“ Then come, come ! Ring for your maid, and get 
a little hat. That plain gray crepon is just ideal; 
you ’ll look like a nun who has determined to cheer 
up a bit. If we are bored, as Jack says I will be, 
there ’ll be nothing but to come out again.” 


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Sybil, wishing to say that her husband contemned 
the practice of women of good society attending 
music-halls, could not maintain this, or anything 
serious, in the face of Etta in her present mood. 

Davenant, having worked until turned out of his 
Lawyers’ Snug Harbor by extinction of the lights, 
started to walk home in a very happy and elated 
frame of mind. Not only was his brain singing a 
paean over its congenial labors of the evening, but 
his heart reverted to the image of Sybil as he had left 
her— beautiful, graceful, wistful at his going. 

“She can’t know— I can’t expect her to know- 
how she fills my being, or that would be enough for 
her, I think,” he meditated, striding away with firm 
footsteps to his home. 

At a corner, coming out of a club, he ran upon 
Mr. Cleve. 

“ Hallo, Davenant ! Glad to see you. Let ’s keep 
together till I get to my street. I thought you must 
be at the library when I saw your pretty wife, an 
hour ago, at that raree-show of Amina’s, along with 
Mrs. Stanley and Willy Lang.” 

“I can’t imagine what you mean,” said Davenant. 
“ My wife is at home this evening.” 

“Oh, I see,” said old Cleve, discreetly. “Then I 
must have mistaken some one else in the box for her.” 

He would rather have bitten his tongue out than 
have made such an old-fogy blunder. The common 
belief that Mr. and Mrs. Davenant were more blindly 
in love with each other than before, since that attempt 
to start a scandal about Lang and Sybil, had possessed 


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193 


his mind. He tried to think of a good story with 
which to cover his stupid break. But the certainty 
of having seen Sybil under the circumstances described 
annoyed him. For once Mr. Cleve had not a joke 
upon his tongue. 

When they parted, Davenant hurried on, but not 
so cheerfully. Despite himself, he was depressed by 
the image Cleve had conjured up. A light burning 
in Sybil’s room showed that she was still awake. He 
found her in her tea-gown, flushed and appealing, 
running to meet him at the top of the stairs. 

“My dearest Peter,” she cried, “since you left, 
guess what has happened to me ! I have sown my 
first wild oats. I have been with Etta to see Amina ! 
It was tiresome, and she did n’t amuse me in the very 
least. And the tobacco-smoke got into my hair so 
that I ’ve been all this time brushing it out. Be 
sure I shall never want to go again.” 

“Etta?” said he, coldly. “This was not a plan 
prearranged, then?” 

“Of course not. I had n’t dreamed of it when 
she came, and I did n’t want to go. But you know 
Etta. When she has set her mind to anything, she 
will never give it up. Don’t be afraid, Peter ; your 
wife has no taste for wild oats.” 

“ And, besides Etta, who was of the party ? ” 

His persistently cold tone, chilling her impulse of full 
confidence, and the line between his brows, bringing 
back the day of his fury against Lang, suddenly overbore 
her. Her eyes fell ; her face grew pallid ; she looked 
like a woman conscious of concealing wrong-doing. 

“ Sybil, answer me ! ” he said. 

13 


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“ If you mean Lang, he was of the party. It was 
not my fault ) hut your speaking to me like this only 
makes me not care whether it was or not ! ” she cried 
rebelliously. 

Davenant saw that she spoke truth ; but, having 
worked himself up to this pinnacle, poor human 
nature would not allow him to come down from it. 
She, on her side, felt a hard, stubborn lump in the 
place of her usual loving, melting heart. They parted 
for the night under a cloud that seemed to both of 
them to shut out heaven and earth. 

After a day or two of this miserable difference, the 
couple came together again in a burst of common 
self-reproach. Davenant determined to use the 
strength of his manhood to prevent a recurrence of 
the scene ; and Sybil, who had not had his distraction 
of hard work and contact with the outer world, felt 
that if it did happen again she should give up all 
pretense of considering herself a happy wife. In this 
state of mind, she avoided his friends, whom she 
could not bear to have suspect what was passing in 
her life. While Davenant’s work forged ahead with 
a steady progress, and he was engrossed with prepa- 
rations for a day to come in court, Sybil went one 
afternoon to see Mrs. Stanley. 

Etta, for Etta, was almost gay. She was making 
up a little party to go to a “tiny island” Jack had 
been induced to buy in the Bay of Chesapeake, where 
he could go in season for duck-shooting, and whereon 
there was an ancient house he had just had over- 
hauled and made fit to live in. (It is a fact of latter- 
day notoriety that when ladies of the Etta group 


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have exhausted their possibilities of continents, they 
desire to appropriate islands.) Etta had just been 
on the point of writing to Sybil to come up and talk 
it over. Of course Sybil and Peter would go, or 
rather would come on to join her there. Etta and 
Jack were setting off soon, with some servants, and 
when they should have opened and aired the house 
would expect their guests. Mrs. Arden and her 
daughters, and quite a pleasant little “gang” (so 
Etta called them), were coming to “camp out.” 

Sybil's heart gave a jump of pleasure at the idea of 
this glimpse of easy, cheerful outdoor life. She was 
familiar with Etta's habit of “ camping out,” if only 
for a fortnight— with all the luxuries of life about 
her. As Mr. Carnifex had said, the Stanleys knew 
how to do things thoroughly. She promised Etta to 
let her know at once, and with a buoyant feeling 
awaited the return of Peter, that she might win his 
assent to the invitation. 

“My dear Sybil,” her husband said, when her 
scheme was glowingly unfolded, “how can you think 
of it? I could no more go away from town now 
than I could change that rug into a flying-carpet to 
save our traveling expenses.” 

“ But we have not once been out of town since we 
landed. I have never stopped so long in town on a 
stretch.” 

There was, could she have seen it, a noble look in 
her husband's eyes— a patient, brave, and far-seeing 
look. He spoke gently : 

“ Do you remember my telling you, once, that New 
York is my life ? ” 


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u I know j but every one ’s the better for a change 
at this time of the year. You can work all the harder 
when you come back. A week — what ’s a week, 
Peter ? And we ’ll be so happy in the country. This 
house stifles me 5 it is so little, and has so many hang- 
ings. And the street is so ugly outside. One can’t 
walk forever j and 1 ’ve no way to drive, we are so poor.” 

Davenant saw her lip tremble. He felt like a 
parent refusing something to a beloved child. 

“ Courage, my darling! We sha’n’t always be 
poor. At the present outlook, I ’ll soon have a purse- 
ful to give us a summer outing, pay all these bills 
that have piled up, and leave enough over to start 
next winter with. But put out of mind the idea that 
I can get away now, anywhere. Once and for all, it 
is out of the question.” 

Sybil said nothing. Between them the air was 
pulsing with thoughts each sent out to the other. 
Davenant’s heart yearned over her. Her heart re- 
proached him for making difficulties and conjuring 
up scruples. Since that wretched Lang affair, Peter 
had never been quite the same to her, she felt. 

Presently she began again : 

“ I really think, Peter, I had better go to Etta, even 
if you can’t.” 

Here Sybil felt reasonably secure. The army of 
traveling wives abroad, whose husbands are invisible, 
had long familiarized her with American complai- 
sance in this direction. Whenever Etta felt like it, 
she took a maid and went — anywhere. Sybil, with 
her maid, could easily make the day’s journey re- 
quired to reach Etta’s island. 


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“ Do yon want so much to go ? 77 said her husband, 
tightening his lips in a way she did not like. u Sybil, 
I do not wish to seem ungenerous, and therefore I 
must tell you the full truth. After paying the last 
month’s bills this morning, and settling one or two 
big outstanding ones, I am quite empty-handed. 
Your little funds have gone into your own clothes 
and spending-money. The servants 7 wages alone 
mount up tremendously. I was just making up my 
mind to ask you to dismiss the second man when you 
spoke to me to-night. I think we have got too ex- 
pensive a cook; and if we— you— only knew enough 
to make a clean sweep of these nuisances, and begin 
fresh with a cheaper lot — 77 

“Do you know what cheap servants are, Peter? 77 
cried she, woefully. 

u I don 7 t know. 1 7 m afraid I only care about living 
honestly, within our means. 77 

11 It is awful— this drop, 77 she said, sobbing. “ I see 
now what I 7 ve brought upon you. Everybody told 
me I was making a mistake. 77 

Peter was deeply wounded. He could find no 
words to answer her. 

“ Then it is because you have absolutely no money 
I may n 7 t go away to Etta? 77 she asked. 

“ That chiefly, if you will, 77 he said curtly, leaving 
her to another— and the worst— of her lonely evenings. 

During this time of solitude Sybil’s mind swung 
like a pendulum between good and evil. She loved 
Peter dearly, but thought him unreasonably hard and 
cold. She wished to stay with him, then reflected 
how little he kept by her nowadays. 


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She felt ready to bear anything for him, then 
quailed before the prospect of the meager arrange- 
ments he proposed. If she had only had money, all 
would have gone well. If she had only money now, all 
would go better, and, with money in pocket, she could 
treat herself to this jaunt about which Peter was so 
indifferent. At this point she thought of her cousin 
St. Clair, and his offers of help to her. 


XII 



jYBIL knew, by experience of her 
cousin’s indolent habits, that she 
could not expect to find him up and 
dressed and consuming his apology 
for a breakfast before twelve o’clock. 
Taking a hansom on the morning 
after her stormy talk with Peter, she drove to the 
house where St. Clair had his luxurious flat. The 
porter who directed her to the right floor, and the 
“ buttons” who propelled her in the elevator, looked 
rather impudently at her, Sybil thought. But she 
was so full of her own intentions in the visit, so 
timorous about carrying them out, and so accustomed 
to think of St. Clair as she had best known him, a 
whimpering, helpless invalid in his mother’s house, 
sharing her care with that of his two trained nurses, 
that she did not stop to consider appearances. Her 
cousin’s own man, who knew her well, greeted her 
respectfully as he opened the door and invited her 
within. She found St. Clair, shriveled up in the 
depths of a chair that might have been a cardinal’s 
for size and splendor, sipping a cup of malted milk. 

“ Good Lord, it ’s horrible ! ” he exclaimed queru- 
lously, as she commented on his poor breakfast. “ To 
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live on wash like this, and my dinners weighed out 
for me in scales by that fellow of mine, who, on sixty 
dollars a month, has the digestion of an ostrich! 
What can I do for you? This is the first time you 
have honored me with a visit, and I hope it ’s to say 
your husband thinks better of letting me settle some- 
thing on you out of my mother’s estate.” 

“No, no,” said she. “Peter is like a rock. I have 
found that out. He will never give up a point.” 

St. Clair was struck by a jangled note in her ordi- 
narily soft and even tones. 

“It ’s come to you, then, has it?” he asked, looking 
at her curiously. “ It ’s rather soon, but it comes to 
all of ’em.” 

“What do you mean, St. Clair?” said his cousin, 
whose eye had been attracted by the sumptuous tap- 
estries forming the portieres of his rooms. 

“What those French fellows that write the only 
novels I can read call disillusion. Hang it all, Sybil, 
I ’m sorry. I ’m not often sorry, but I am now.” 

“You mistake. I love my husband better than I 
did at first,” she replied, the blood crimsoning her 
face and neck. “ But—” 

“But, but— there are always buts,” said the little 
man. “ Do you wonder I never put my head in the 
noose? Look here, Sybil. I wish you ’d occupy 
that old barn of my mother’s in Washington Square 
for me. It ’s an elephant on my hands. I can’t rent 
it, and wild horses would n’t make me go there to 
live.” 

“ What do you take us for, St. Clair ? I know very 
little about living, but I know we could n’t afford 


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that. And it would be dreadful to push myself into 
a place that Aunt Lewiston shut me out of when she 
was alive. But it ’s about your helping me in another 
way I came here. I should be deeply obliged to you 
to— to lend me a little money that I can pay you when 
I get my next dividend.” 

St. Clair, who thought he knew something about 
loans of money to ladies expecting dividends, smiled. 
Getting up to walk over to his writing-table, he took 
a check-book from a drawer. 

“ Here you are. What amount, now ? A thousand 
—five hundred? You have only to say the word. 
We ’ll agree that Davenant shall never know.” 

“ One hundred would be all-sufficient,” said poor 
Sybil, feeling a wave of shame run over her. When 
St. Clair proposed that she should keep this from her 
husband, it was the first time she had really felt a 
sense of impropriety. 

“Oh, I understand. A pretty woman must have 
grist for her mill— or milliner,” said her cousin, essay- 
ing, while in process of filling in the check, a consol- 
ing jocularity. “Only, this will soon be gone, my 
lady, and I want to give you a word of advice. I ’m 
not one to preach, you ’ll think, and God knows it ’s 
so. But you ’ve been kind and sweet to me, and 
you ’re a good little girl, too. Don’t get into money 
scrapes that you can’t tell your husband. Like to see 
that couple of new Monets of mine? Delirium Tre- 
mendous, my doctor calls ’em. You must go, eh? 
Remember me to Davenant. He ’s a man, Davenant 
is. Thought all the better of him for holding out 
against living in my mother’s house when she offered 


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it. Wish you ’d take it now, though. Pay me rent, 
if you please— anything, so you rid me of the care of 
it. Perhaps by next winter you ’ll repent. Good-by. 
The door, Clements ; and shut it quickly, so that I 
may not feel the draft.” 

Sybil, thrusting her check into a side-pocket of her 
jacket, went away feeling crestfallen. It was her 
first essay as a borrower. She had never known 
money’s value, having never wanted money’s worth. 
Somehow, with all his liberality, she felt that St. 
Clair did not think quite as well of her as before she 
had made this demand on him. 

But, having begun, there was no drawing back. 
Telling the cabman to drive her to Mrs. Stanley’s, 
she stopped to lunch with Etta, drove in the park 
with her, and returned home at dinner-time, pledged 
to repair to her island on a certain day of the fol- 
lowing week. A pinch of conscience impelling her 
to take some one into confidence regarding her rash 
act of the morning, Sybil had said to Etta, just before 
they parted : 

“ Do tell me, dear. If one were in rather a tight 
place for want of cash—” 

“ Heavens ! is n’t everybody ? ” laughed her friend. 

“ — do you think there would be any harm in one’s 
—in my letting St. Clair Lewiston lend me a little 
money ? ” 

“ Harm ! ” replied Etta. “ Why, it ought to be 
squeezed out of him for you, poor shorn lamb ! ” 

“Oh, but he ’s offered— no end of things,” cried 
Sybil j “ and Peter will take nothing.” 

“ Then Peter gives the supreme evidence that he is 


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not long for this world. The idea— in your circum- 
stances ! Why, my child, you must be poverty- 
stricken ! Of course 1 ’d let St. Clair lend me money. 
Women’s finances have to be ‘ helped out’ now and 
then. I wish you ’d heard Lady Bell’s account of the 
way some of her friends are floated—” 

Sybil’s color rose. She did not fancy this illustra- 
tion. Etta had never seemed to her so repellent. 
But she went home, as has been said, engaged to do 
the thing she dared not mention to Peter until the 
time should come. 

As Davenant was leaving her for his usual evening 
of work on the eve of the day she had fixed for her 
little journey, an impulse of remorse prompted her to 
run into the hall, and, seizing one button of his coat 
after a fashion of her own, arrest his progress. 

“ Peter, tell me, are you going to be busy like this 
long ? ” 

“ I hope two or three days will see me through the 
woods,” he said, but without any of the expressions 
of tenderness she had looked upon as daily bread. 
“ My dear Sybil, what you have to bear is the lot of 
most American wives of your class who have working 
husbands. Do not persuade yourself that you are 
the only martyr. In a few words, to live as we 
must live, I must work as I am working. Good 
night. Keep up your spirits. Soon we shall have 
our evenings together as before.” 

But he thought of her often during the evening, 
and -on his way home, earlier than usual, when he 
passed the Carnifexes’ house and saw it still lighted, 


204 


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conceived the idea of going in to bespeak Agatha’s 
good graces for his wife. 

Mr. Carnifex was out at a club dinner, the servant 
said. Miss Carnifex was in the library, reading. If 
Mr. Davenant would walk in, Miss Carnifex would 
no doubt see him, added the man, aware of the family 
estimate of this visitor. 

Agatha, coming down-stairs at once, looked sur- 
prised, but pleased, by his late call. Davenant had 
never been more struck by the serenity of her brow, 
the charm of her friendly smile. It gave him courage 
to plunge, with a lack of his usual reticence he could 
not understand, into a statement of Sybil’s case. 

“I see exactly,” she replied in comment; “and, if 
you will pardon me, I have been fearing something 
of this kind. If the poor girl could only look out 
and above the present, to what you are achieving for 
her— what she will one day exult in—” 

Davenant sighed. 

“I am beginning to think that may never be,” he 
said. “ I expected too much. I understood too little 
of woman’s nature. I suppose my imagination tried to 
fit the old-fashioned wife into the new woman’s place.” 

“ You are right,” she said with a flash of the eye. 
“Women in these days, although they may not want 
to vote, want something to satisfy the celestial part 
of them ; and if they are not trained to subsist upon 
their own intellects must find relief somewhere. But 
Sybil is too genuine and charming a creature not 
to be, in the end, all a husband could aspire to possess 
in his domestic deity. Do you know, I feel guilty at 
saying this to a man about his wife? And I had 


GOOD AMEEICANS 


205 


rather say no more. I shall make it my business, 
though, to seek her companionship oftener, to let her 
know the real friendship she has made me feel for 
her ” 

“You are a friend in a thousand ! ” he exclaimed 
impulsively. “I wonder if you ’d mind my saying 
that every conversation I have had with you has 
given impetus to the best ambitions of my life ? ” 

Agatha leaned over to draw a lamp-screen between 
her face and the light that fell upon it. In a jar of 
deep-red Chinese porcelain behind her had been 
placed some boughs of dogwood just brought in from 
the country. About the room were scattered spring 
blossoms of various kinds, gathered from woods and 
lawns, and sending forth a fragrance like healthy 
hope renewed. The sanctuary of Agatha’s presence, 
surrounded and adorned by these emblems, breathed 
upon Davenant a waft of peace and rest. He con- 
tinued to talk to her for a while— of himself and his 
aspirations chiefly, to which point she always led the 
way. He was flattered to see that she was acquainted 
with his new prospects, had heard the plaudits of his 
friends and followers concerning them. From this 
they went on to unfold common ideas upon political 
subjects and the future of the country; and at last 
he took his leave, remembering the hour, and breaking 
off in the midst of an impatient declaration that all 
might yet go well with our big-overgrown nation if 
its governing bodies, in company with the editors of 
some newspapers, would consent to retire for ten years 
or so to the Sandwich Islands, or anywhere out of 
the United States. 


206 


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He found Sybil awake and up, in a room full of 
traces of preparation for a journey. An open travel- 
ing-trunk stood against the chimney-place, its trays, 
filled with vaporous garments covered in by tissue- 
paper, placed here and there, awaiting consignment. 
A little gray costume that he recognized as one he 
had been with her to the tailor’s to pass upon was 
spread upon a chair. Even the trim shoes and gaiters 
to match it were put out. What could this portend ? 

“ My dear child, why are you not asleep ? ” he said. 

“Peter, I did not tell you before, because it was 
not worth while,” she said, with the directness that 
rarely forsook her. “It would have just produced 
discussions to embitter our meals— for you know I 
see you only then. I am going to-morrow to stay 
with Etta for a week on her island. When I come 
back, things will go better between us, I hope. I 
shall feel better— stronger to bear trifles. And you 
—you will not miss me.” 

She spoke so quietly that Peter was deceived into 
believing her indifferent. Wrath rose within him. 
Apart from the lack of feeling involved, he had never 
imagined a young wife taking such a step away from 
her husband. 

“This is some of Etta’s teaching. It may do for 
that woman and her ‘ gang,’ but hardly for my wife,” 
he answered angrily, using certain other expressions 
Sybil had not before heard from his lips. 

She turned white, and trembled, but did not reply, 
while he said his say. 

“And if I may ask where you obtained the funds 
for the expedition,” he remarked finally, “ I should be 


GOOD AMERICANS 


207 


greatly obliged by an answer. It is quite impossible 
that you go at Mrs. Stanley’s expense.” 

“ That is what I feel most badly about,” she replied. 
11 1 did a foolish thing, Peter, but it did not seem to 
me a wrong one. After my cousin St. Clair came 
here one day to insist upon giving me some money 
from my aunt’s estate, and I refused it, -I thought I 
might borrow a little from him for this emergency; 
so I went to his rooms, and asked him for a check—” 

She stopped, quailing. Again that eye of flame, 
that lowering brow, his face transformed into that of 
an unsparing judge. 

“You— went alone to St. Clair Lewiston’s rooms, 
and asked him— for— a check?” he repeated, the 
words escaping him in gasps of scornful anger. 

“Peter, it was only a hundred dollars. I was 
sorry, the moment I had done it ; but St. Clair is my 
nearest relative— I did not think—” 

“That ’s enough. I shall return it to him to- 
morrow. But I can’t undo your going there— worse 
luck !— any more than I can undo this wish of yours 
to leave me.” 

“Do you want me to give this visit up?” she 
faltered. 

“ Give it up ? No — never. I want you to go. I 
want you to enjoy yourself in the usual fashion of 
ladies who weary of their lords’ exactions. Under- 
stand that you have my full sanction. Put any face 
you choose on it before the world, and I ’ll stand by 
you.” 

She was bewildered by his sudden change into self- 
control. 


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“ Yon mean— yon mean—” 

“ I mean that if you wish to go, I want yon to go. 
That affair about the check has humiliated me so that 
I have no other feeling left, I think.” 

He stood moodily gazing into space. She faced 
him, conscience-stricken, wretched, longing to throw 
herself upon his neck and pray for pardon, but withal 
not realizing the force of her offense. 

One movement from him toward her, one impulse 
yielded to by her, might have ended the sad matter. 
But their eyes stubbornly refused to meet; their 
hearts, resisting, held apart, while an iron barrier 
arose between them. 

Presently Davenant went into his own room, and 
closed the door. 

The next morning he accompanied his wife to the 
southward-bound train, putting her, with the maid, 
into good seats in the drawing-room car, and standing 
beside them until the signal to leave was about to be 
given. As he kissed her good-by, Sybil felt terrified 
by the cold touch of his lips. It was their first part- 
ing, and at this moment she would have given all the 
world not to go. She wished to say so, but his dark 
face silenced her. When he left the car, she sat still 
for an instant, then sprang to her feet and ran swiftly 
toward the door at the end. The narrow passageway 
was blocked by some people coming in, preceded by 
the porter with their bags. These proving to be jolly 
Mrs. Arden and her daughters, Sybil felt glad that 
Peter had seen them join her. But she resented the 
interruption that kept her from her husband. Get- 
ting at last down upon the steps, she leaned out 


GOOD AMERICANS 


209 


eagerly. If Peter had been there, she would have 
jumped off, fastened herself to his arm, and refused 
to go back into the car. A passion of love and long- 
ing for him absorbed her. Only to see his dear face, 
only to tell him that she could not live away from 
him ! Straining her gaze over the crowd on the plat- 
form, she caught sight at last of Peter, turning to 
look back, the length of two cars away from her. 
He saw her, lifted his hat. Sybil, beside herself with 
emotion, was about to spring from the step to run in 
pursuit of him, when the train moved. A last flying 
figure, coming to board it, forced her back, the porter 
behind her aiding to draw her into the doorway. To 
Sybils utter dismay, this last arrival, whom her hus- 
band must have distinctly seen, was the man he hated 
—Lang ! 

Davenant stood staring after the train till it had 
passed out of the long tunnel of the station and 
become a speck in the distance. He then fell into 
line with the crowd incessantly surging over the 
gang-planks of ferry-boats, and crossed the river, 
returning to his office. Late in the evening he 
reached home, after stopping for a Bohemian dinner 
in a restaurant rather than at his club, where people 
might speak to him of her. The little house, which, 
in spite of its incompleteness as a home, was yet 
eloquent of her, was like a face with eyes shut. All 
up-stairs was silent and dreary. Down below, where 
they were yet unaware of the master's return, the 
servants were celebrating their free evening with 
hilarity. Upon a card-receiver on the hall table he 
14" 


210 


GOOD AMERICANS 


saw the yellow envelop of a telegram. It was un- 
signed, but the contents left him no room to doubt 
the sender. 

What you saw last took me by surprise as much as you. If 
you say, come, will return to-morrow. 

“I shall not say come,” he muttered between 
clenched teeth. “She must come, as she chose to 
leave me, of her own accord.” 

He went up to his study, a place where his books, 
as usual, overflowed, and where Sybil had insisted 
upon making things “look as they used to do in the 
happy days when Peter was a bachelor.” Up on the 
top of a bookcase stood the cast of Nike Dipteros 
he had purchased the spring before because it re- 
minded him of her. The inspiration of the noble 
form, with its fluttering, wind-filled drapery, and 
glorious wings outspread, appealed to him with its 
eternal message to rejoice in victory achieved— then 
sent him into lower depths of gloom! What had 
been his victory ? 

He looked into Sybil’s chamber, turning from the 
threshold, aghast at its emptiness. A pair of em- 
broidered slippers he had bought for her in the 
bazaar at Smyrna remained upon the fluffy mat 
before her dressing-table. Vividly he recalled that 
bright day’s ramble, in the little Turkish town, of 
two happy, enamoured people, laughing at everything 
for very joy of existence. A strip of rare old Rhodian 
embroidery across her table brought back Athens, 
and the dusky shop crammed with curios where they 
had chaffered, Sybil carrying off this bit hugged to 


GOOD AMERICANS 


211 


her breast in the rapture of possession. His own 
portrait, in a triptych of enamel purchased in Naples 
as they were sailing for America, looked at him from 
the mantel. This Peter closed with a snap, covering 
his handsome features out of sight. He could not 
endure their joyous look, for the picture had been 
taken to please her, in Paris, upon their arrival out. 

Poor Davenant, deciding he could stand no more 
of it, hurried down-stairs. In the act of issuing from 
his door he was intercepted by Katrina Grantham 
and Agatha Carnifex, accompanied by Jim Grant- 
ham, the lively lad who had steered Peter's canoe 
straight into the jaws of danger on Lake Pocasset. 

“Consider us country cousins,” said Mrs. Grant- 
ham, “come with our knitting to sit awhile with 
Sybil, if she will have us.” 

“Pray come into the drawing-room,” answered 
Davenant, who still retained some of his Southern 
spirit of formal hospitality. “I am only too sorry 
that Sybil left town this morning— for— er— a brief 
jaunt to the South. She had an opportunity— Mrs. 
Arden and her daughters— a change of air necessary 
—my wife has not been quite herself.” 

He spoke bravely, but could not hide his wound 
from Agatha. At once his friend divined what had 
happened, or at least saw that a painful crisis had 
been reached in the affairs of the couple about whom 
she had been thinking continuously since his visit to 
her the night before. 

“You are going out? We will not detain you, 
then,” said Mrs. Grantham, blankly. She was really 
distressed. Although knowing far less of the real 


212 


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state of affairs than Agatha, she was too clever a 
woman not to see that something had gone seriously 
wrong between her proteges. But upon Davenant’s 
urging them to remain awhile, the party sat talking 
—Jim, driven to looking at photographs, wishing 
himself back in the canoe on Lake Pocasset. 

Peter knew this visit was prompted by Agatha’s 
kind feeling. He wished heartily that it had occurred 
the night previous. The still house as he had just 
found it made him realize what Sybil’s vigils must 
have been while he had been away toiling up For- 
tune’s ladder for her sake. When, for a moment, he 
took Jim up-stairs to present him with an Oriental 
dagger brought home from their travels, Katrina 
looked at Agatha, and whispered : 

“ My dear, this is gruesome ! Davenant’s eyes 
reveal everything. How could she have gone off 
there with Etta’s fine party, and left him in this dis- 
mal house, all stuffed with other people’s dingy fur- 
niture-just on the eve of his ordeal, too ? The way 
he has worked his affair up is a marvel. My hus- 
band says it is a real triumph of a sane man over a 
bridegroom. And to-morrow ’s Davenant’s great day 
in court. If he wins this suit it will mean everything 
to him— everything ! I don’t believe Sybil knew how 
much is involved j but why she did n’t know is some- 
thing I cannot understand.” 

Agatha was spared answering by Jim Grantham’s 
voice, over the stairs, calling : 

u Mother, come up here a minute. I want to show 
you some bully Turkish knives.” 

Katrina obeyed, smiling. As she lingered with her 


GOOD AMERICANS 


213 


lad, looking over Davenant’s little collection of arms 
upon the wall of his study, the host came again 
down-stairs. 

“You have guessed, I see,” he said in a rapid, 
agitated voice. “To no other person could I betray 
myself. A blow like this numbs. I can’t say I ’m 
suffering. I ’m stunned.” 

The soothing, protecting impulse ever uppermost 
in Miss Carnifex toward afflicted humanity stood her 
in good stead now. With her own heart racked by 
his sorrow, yet warmed by ardent sympathy, she 
spoke cheerfully: 

“I can’t advise you not to mind it, for I know 
you. But I do honestly believe you magnify things. 
Her going was a mistake, a misfortune, no matter 
what led to it. Don’t justify yourself or her to me. 
I think only kind things of both of you; and I 
am sure this will come out right.” 

“ It is a horror for a man to doubt so soon that his 
wife’s love will stand the strain marriage must put on 
it ; to have seen it give way in the first test ; to know 
that the influence of others— triflers— is so much 
stronger than his—” 

“ Hush, hush ! ” said his friend. “ Leave others out 
of the question. Let your universe be filled with you 
and one other.” 

“ Ah, but you have not loved ! ” he exclaimed. 

Agatha did not stir or speak. Gradually the influ- 
ence of her calm extended to him. 

“I begin to feel hypnotized,” he said with a half- 
smile. “You are controlling me somehow.” 

“Then obey the medium’s behest,” she answered. 


214 


GOOD AMERICANS 


“In whatever way yon do it, communicate at once 
with Sybil. Let her feel your forgiveness.” 

Jim Grantham, arriving at the foot of the stairs 
by the simple process of sliding down the banisters, 
here appeared, followed more leisurely by his mama. 
Katrina, declaring they must no longer keep Mr. 
Davenant from his affairs, wished him good night, 
adding her kindest hopes for his success in the court- 
room on the morrow. 

“ And yours, too ? May I think of you as wishing 
me to trounce my adversaries?” asked Davenant, 
clasping Agatha’s hand as she was about to leave. 

“Oh, I am always to be counted upon,” she said 
lightly; but in the dim light of the hall he saw in 
her deep and steadfast eyes a vision of what might 
have been had not the “ministers that feed Love’s 
mighty flame ” led his feet into another path. 

Under the weight of thoughts and feelings which 
this day and evening had laid upon him, Peter went 
out and walked for a while in the starlight, pondering 
upon past and future. Then, returning to his study 
cheered and strengthened, he sat down to his table, 
and poured into a letter to Sybil the full tide of his 
love for her, that, whether for good or ill, would 
always be the supreme passion of his life. Sealing 
and stamping this important missive, he went out 
again to a post-box at the corner, and deposited it, 
feeling a sense of exquisite relief. 

The next day Davenant appeared in court in the 
plenitude of his remarkable powers. His brilliant, 
almost audacious, management of his case was a 


GOOD AMERICANS 


215 


matter of universal comment. Among the jaded souls 
who wait, generally in vain, upon forensic eloquence 
in modern court-rooms, there was only one opinion as 
to his surety of success. He went out of the scene of 
his triumph walking upon air. This triumph, like all 
he owned besides, should go to her— to her. 

He reached home later than usual in the evening, 
expecting to dress and dine with a friend. He did 
not know that during the last two or three hours 
messengers with notes had been in search of him 
down-town and at his various clubs, and, having 
failed to find him, had returned the notes to his own 
house, whence they had been originally sent out. 

Davenant’s first sight of his front door revealed a 
doctor’s brougham, then another, passing and repass- 
ing before it. He wondered who was ill in the next 
house, then reflected that he did not even know who 
lived in the next house. When he put his key in the 
latch and opened his familiar portal, his nostrils were 
saluted by the strong smell of ether. 

Some one came down to meet him. It was Agatha. 
She took him by the hand, and drew him into the 
drawing-room, where she had left him, inspired with 
happiness, the night before. 

u Sybil has been hurt,” she said. u She arrived in 
Jersey City at four-fifteen, and, after crossing the 
river, took a hansom, with her maid, to come up-town. 
There was a collision with a loaded truck. The maid 
was not injured, but Sybil got a blow. The maid 
brought her directly here, and sent for us. The 
doctors are both with her now, and the surgical 
operation is over safely.” 


216 


GOOD AMERICANS 


“ Sybil is hurt— the surgical operation is over— the 
doctors are with her now,” kept on ringing in Peter’s 
brain. Agatha lifted his hand again, which she had 
dropped. 

“ They cannot tell how it will come out, but there 
is hope, of course,” she said forlornly, keeping back 
her tears. “ Katrina Grantham is with her. Do you 
wish to go up ? ” 

Davenant looked at her with haggard eyes, then 
bounded up the stairs. 

For hours he watched by Sybil’s beautiful, inani- 
mate form. Then the physicians, taking him in 
charge, declared there was likely to be no immediate 
change, and urged him to get food and rest. Food 
he accepted, but of rest there could be none till he 
was assured of better things. In the middle of the 
night one of the doctors came down to tell him that 
his wife was holding her own, and gave him stronger 
hope of improvement $ then, struck by his dazed, 
pallid looks, advised him to go outside and rid his 
lungs of the drug-laden atmosphere of the house. 

“There can be no reason to keep you here— no 
reason why you may not get a breath of air,” he 
added with assurance. 

Davenant, obeying mechanically, found himself 
straying like a lost dog into a square not far from 
home, where he dropped upon a bench. A tramp 
napping near him excited his envy. “He has not 
left at home, in extremity, one dearer than are the 
ruddy drops that visit his sad heart,” murmured 
Peter. The situation recalled like a flash the occa- 
sion of that other nocturnal adventure of his, in 


GOOD AMERICANS 


217 


Washington Square, on the night of Mrs. Crawford’s 
party, when he had watched Sybil trip down her 
aunt’s steps, and had ventured to join her. The 
thought of her light, graceful movements, now stilled 
in suffering, was like a goad, driving him home 
again. He could not go fast enough. He wondered 
why he had consented to put so many steps between 
him and his darling. By this time she might be 
worse ! 

In a cold sweat of terror, he began to run. A police- 
man, making after him, seized him by the arm. When 
he saw Davenant’s face, the man instinctively recog- 
nized that it was grief, not evil, that inspired the 
fugitive. 

“ My wife is very ill,” said Davenant, babbling like 
a child. “ I am going home to look after her.” 

“Beg pardon, sir,” said the officer, touching his 
hat. “ I hope you ’ll find your lady better when you 
get there.” 

Davenant resumed his mad career. At the corner, 
whence he could see his own house, he noticed that 
the lights in Sybil’s room, hitherto bright, had been 
darkened. 

“ Has it come, then ? ” he groaned, trying to nerve 
himself. 

At the turning of the lock, Agatha was again before 
him ; but for blind grief he could not see her face. 

“Hush,” she said tenderly. “Sybil has gone to 
sleep. She aroused once, asked for you, and is doing 
well. One of the doctors has gone home; the other 
is watching by her.” 

Davenant, treading noiselessly, went up-stairs to 


218 


GOOD AMERICANS 


the open door of his wife’s bedroom. As he did so, 
the doctor, who was lying back dozing in the arm- 
chair of the little study at the rear, started awake, 
got upon his feet, and coming toward him, wrung his 
hand. 

“Your wife will live, Mr. Davenant,” he said wdth 
manly sympathy. 

“Will live ! ” Ah, blessed words ! Who that ever 
heard them will not recognize the hand stretched out 
to rescue a shuddering wretch on the verge of falling 
into a gulf? Peter for the first time felt the tears 
rain down his cheeks. Passing in to where she lay 
sweetly slumbering, Katrina, the nurse, and Sybil’s 
maid all withdrew to give place to him. When alone 
with his beloved, he threw himself upon his knees 
beside the bed, and prayed. Be profundis he arose 
upon wings of victory. 

Katrina Grantham, who had known many disap- 
pointments in her attempts to turn the course of 
other people’s true love into a channel opened for it 
by herself, was destined, during the ensuing year, to 
encounter a supreme surprise. Just when Katrina 
had picked out for Agatha Carnifex a new and ap- 
propriate suitor— could he only be made to see it— in 
the person of a distinguished bachelor of highest rank 
in the legal world, and of ample means, Agatha 
announced her engagement with Hamilton Ainslie. 
Ainslie, who had laboriously acquired a zest for 
American business life, and even a faint Yankee 
accent (dropped when he forgot about it), was now 
vaguely spoken of as “ in coffee,” and doing extremely 


GOOD AMERICANS 


219 


well. He certainly had every reason to consider him- 
self in luck as well as coffee, thought his friends j and 
of these none were warmer in congratulation of the 
affianced pair than Sybil and Peter Davenant. 

The latter couple, now established in the former 
dwelling of Sybil’s aunt, were enabled to encounter 
their increased expenses in that comfortable establish- 
ment by the help of the money coming to Sybil, with 
the house, by the death at Schwalbach, “ suddenly,” 
of Mr. St. Clair Lewiston. With all Peter’s high- 
minded renunciation of a share of Mrs. Lewiston’s 
fortune in her son’s lifetime, he had no valid excuse 
for refusing it under the present circumstances. 

Mrs. Grantham, at last accounts, was bemoaning 
her sad lot because an excellent young man had pre- 
sented himself for Katty— Katty having coincidentally 
announced herself in favor of the excellent young 
man. But as that mother, like many another in 
similar case, would have been more unhappy had 
there been no husband in store for her charming and 
winsome daughter, Mowbray Grantham reserved his 
decision when called on for sympathy in her woes. 
And then, also, he bethought him that, Katty being 
married, he might hope for a reasonable share of his 
wife’s company once more. 

Mrs. Stanley shut up her various houses in America, 
and, with Jack and others, went to Europe for a year 
of “rest.” Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby, finding it im- 
possible to support the cares of existence in their new 
house, sold it, with furniture, rugs, curtains, objects 
of art, and all pictures excepting the portrait of Mrs. 
Willoughby by Carolus. (That was boxed.) The 


220 


GOOD AMERICANS 


Willoughbys had, in fact, become convinced that the 
only way for good Americans to live is in knocking 
around Europe. They kept the AlmSe — sending her 
from port to port of desirable resorts, and meeting 
her by rail. Mrs. Willoughby’s parties of pleasure in 
smooth waters, upon her “ princely yacht,” became 
matters of international importance, Mrs. Stanley 
quite meekly attending one of them at Nice, and 
being glad to get a card for it. After the Stanleys’ 
own yacht arrived out, there was a lively competition 
between the two American queens as to who should 
excel in extending hospitalities by which people of some 
of the greatest names in aristocratic England profited. 

The mischievous Miss Hilton had nervous prostra- 
tion for a while, then married a mercantile gentleman 
residing in Shanghai, who admires literary taste in 
women, and gives her a very good establishment on 
the Bubbling Well Road. 

Sybil saw Ian Cameron when that noble Scot 
brought his wife out for a bridal journey to the 
States; and Cameron found his old sweetheart not 
only lovelier than ever, but a more contented daughter 
of the Great Republic than most of the women he saw 
about her. Mr. Mortimer has been too busy, since 
Sybil failed him, to know whether he minded it or 
not. And lastly, Lang, the brief disturbing element 
of Davenant’s life, married a wealthy widow from 
the mining districts of Pennsylvania, whom he met 
on an Atlantic liner, crossing. They live in one of 
the new Avenues in Paris, and the tendency of his 
lady’s too well-grown son to call Lang “ popper,” in 
public, occasions his chief annoyance. 









































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